Exactly, they are out there. But we don't even have the budget to go and get the best of them-an art Peterboro perfected. Boyd, Mackail-Smith, MacLean: all the best player in the Conference/BSP when they signed them. This years best BSP player (Jamie Vardy) would cost you 1.5m+! That's what Leicester have paid for him.
I genuinely believe that if you signed the best 20 players in nonleague today, you'd have yourself a mid-table Championship squad, at least. Just go through the players signed out of nonleague every season and where they ultimately get to, that's all the proof you need that the talent is there. But that's a very different thing to a load of blokes who play Sunday league! Never mind BSP being high standard, the next 5 divisions below that will have plenty of future good L1 players in it-but you'd need a scout to spot them, and ours has been busy most Saturdays..
What might work and be a good idea could be to set up a fans volunteering scheme. I'm sure there are some older and younger folks with a bit more spare time who would give of some of there time to help the club out.
Surely a morning a week or a month doing jobs for the club could both help save the club some cash and make the fans feel more part of the club.
I once played 5-aside against some Cov Sphinx players and thought I could compete and even beat them. We lost 17-1 and I scored the 1. We just couldn't get near the ball. Even your lower non league players are pretty damn good.
to put another suggestion into this thread ..( but for christs sake don't tell sisu because they might do it) i would pay a grand for my son to come on for the last 10 minutes of a match..yes he might get booed but it would be one hell of a birthday present..and sisu could just pretend he was another of our youth players who wasn't quite as good as they thought