The World Cup might be upon us, but the more relevant imminent global event for non-league at present is the Tour de France.

Maidstone United are trying to ride clean in a peloton that’s doped up to the eyeballs. And just as doped pelotons had casualties, riders who dropped dead because they had blood with the thickness of slush puppies running clogging their veins, so clubs are falling by the wayside.

Some, like VCD Athletic, have folded completely. Others have taken voluntary relegation. Hashtag United tried to paint their demotion as a triumph, saying “THIS IS NOT A RELEGATION. IT’S A REVOLUTION!”

“And all I can say to that Murray, is bullshit” as the late, great James Hunt once said.

One of the ways of telling a rider was doped was if a donkey suddenly became a thoroughbred. The classic example is the Italian Riccardo Ricco, who won two stages of the 2008 Tour while he was off his tits but ended up in hospital after an illegal blood transfusion that damaged his kidneys and liver.

“Obviously I hope he recovers,” said Mark Cavendish. “But I really do hope he becomes someone’s bitch in prison.”

Non-league football clubs continue to find new and inventive ways of disgracing themselves. Here’s an intro I would have said was far-fetched if it had appeared in the Sunday Sport, but which was published on the BBC website in early May.

“Two men who bought a football club have appeared in court charged with multiple offences including rape, sexual assault and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.

“Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 57, and his husband Scott, 32, of Southwood Chase, Danbury, allegedly targeted and groomed young males…”

“Feel good” stories frequently come with red flags. Macclesfield, liquidated in 2020. knocked Crystal Palace out of the FA Cup in January. Chairman Robert Smethurst told the BBC that Macclesfield had “saved his life” after he overcame addiction.

On May 19 Smethurst was arrested on suspicion of controlling and coercive behaviour.

It’s against this tsunami of bollocks that Maidstone United are attempting to swim as they prepare for the 2026-27 season.

Of this year’s competitors only Torquay are “bigger” than Maidstone United in terms of fanbase and history. Dagenham are the only other side to have played in the Football League, but half the division have appeared in the division above and most of them want to “get back to where they belong”.

At least two clubs in our division are on my personal watchlist. It doesn’t take a genius to work out who they are, but if you want a clue, you need to go through a tunnel to reach them and they both want to reach the Premier League.

Even the “well-run” clubs are operating at significant losses. If you watch Bunch of Amateurs you can marvel at the sheer size of Dorking’s coaching staff, with their eight-man huddles after games.

At the time of writing Craig Fagan doesn’t even have an assistant. As far as the team goes, it isn’t quite the bloodbath of last season, when we were left with a nucleus of just four players from a play-off final-reaching squad, but some of the departures have been surprising. John Gilbert has left us to pursue an opportunity at a higher level, TJ Bramble has left us to pursue an opportunity at a higher level and Sam Corne has left us to pursue an opportunity at Tonbridge.

We’ve resigned Tom Leahy and the former academy striker Ken Charles, while prising Ryan Hanson away from Dover, but Craig told Craig he “needs answers” from the as yet unsigned players, then called out a Twitter account for spreading fake news about a signing.

The club remains unsold and in a Catch-22 situation. Ash and Casey don’t want to sell to a lunatic and yet you’d have to worry about the sanity of anyone who’d want to buy a football club in these circumstances: after a while even the cleanest of riders gets sick of riding pan y agua.

If there’s a silver lining to this, it’s that after the events of this week, the game might be about to get slightly saner. And the Sunday Sport’s former owner might just end up in the same, exclusive residential complex as the Drewitt-Barlows … Imagine the scenes if he does.