Corinthian-Casuals 0 Sutton United 1

12dec06
Surrey Senior Cup 2nd Round
King George's Field, Tolworth
att. 141

It’s a shame that both clubs involved in tonight’s Surrey Senior Cup contest have an element of chocolate in their strip, otherwise we might have seen the most vivid clash of moving colours since a group of young cyperpunks eager to get to their happening beneath a viaduct somewhere in rural Bedfordshire were left with the single transportation option of nicking one of their Dad’s tie-dyed camper-vans kept only as a reminder of their Grateful-Dead-following youth. More’s the pity.

Sutton United have a tendancy to brickbat talk of their home colours with the phrase ‘chocolate and amber’ when, in actuality, their quartered shirts appear to capture an oddly even displacement of the colours found on the boot-squashed arris of a dirty bee. Perhaps. Corinthian-Casuals used to do quarters, but now have halved shirts, which may be just regard for the eyes of their regulars, considering they match their, ahem, ‘chocolate’ with the kind of vivid pink you only usually find painted on the façade of a novelty confectioners.

For those who prefer their world to be a little more conservatively hued, Sutton have done away with their troublesome brown areas for the evening and instead take the field in a father more fetching green and white number. Plenty of Sutton fans have turned out for it to, despite suggestions that the glamour of the Surrey Senior Cup would not be enough to rouse them. Not so, and many wear their green and white away scarves, keen to co-ordinate on a potentially sartorially-disquieting kind of evening. The home support aren’t quite so engaged in replica wearing, although Sutton fan Taz apparently has beadier eyes, “I saw two blokes with training tops on. One had the Corinthians badge and the other the Casuals badge! Make your bloody mind up gents, you only merged in summat like 1938!”

Taz is only a year out. The two amateur sides came together in ’39 with both having histories stretching far back into the 19th century. The Corinthians, of course, carrying that famous name signifying the honest, upstanding purveyors of early association football, and then them Casuals, bringing to mind a load of blokes, with shirts that have long since given up the ghost of covering the navel let along the considerable overhang that lollops in front, burping their way through a shakey 90 minutes on those occasions when they could be bothered to turn up at all.

The reality of course is far more upstanding, and much less hungover. Casuals won the FA Amateur Cup once and this very Surrey Senior Cup, neither of which Corinthians can lay claim to, possibly thanks to their stubborn resistance in their early days to competing for cups or prizes. However, Corinthians can claim to have inspired the formation of a top Brazilian side, a Swedish cup competition and the colour of Real Madrid’s shirts. On top of that Manchester United’s record defeat came at their hands, an 11-3 leathering 102 short years ago. In combination therefore, the modern club can lay claim to a pretty impressive history from both branches of their tree and, indeed, they retain an association with Corinthians Paulista, whose progress they report on in tonight’s programme.

This season, like many others recently, has seen a pretty poor league campaign, and currently they prop up the Isthmian League Division One South. Sutton, from two leagues above, had an excellent record in the Conference National and Isthmian League, and you might now them as the last non-league side to put out top-flight opposition in the FA Cup. Ah, the eighties. However since the advent of Conference South, they’ve had a fairly drab, middling time of it, rattling around mid-table for most of the last two and half years. They can still tap into a large and loyal support though and, like I say, the turnout for this fixture, considering the County Cups don’t usually pull ‘em in until the final is impressive.

On the face of it, it should be a stroll for the U’s, but you know how cups are. Casuals begin quite impressively, with an unfeasibly quick winger, Jemal Carr, whizzing down the wings. Well, I say unfeasibly, but sometimes these things are a trick of the eye and on closer inspection, the arms are pumping at twice the pace of the legs. That said Carr still causes problems for the Sutton defence, popping up all over the pitch.

As half time approaches, both sides have their best chances of the first period. Firstly Sutton make use of a corner. Alan Bray with his back to goal flicks the ball on behind himself, where Zak Graham does the same but a touch harder and, as a result, flips the ball just beyond the far corner of the beaten goalkeeper’s net. At the other end Casuals’ Luke Gay lays the ball off to Craig Dunne who jags past Ryan Palmer to the by-line but his shot rattles along the fence behind the net.

Casuals manager Brian Adamson isn’t too happy with the officials, but appears too polite to express it appropriately. “Got that one wrong ref,” he says with all the spite and venom of a felt finger puppet. Despite these concerns, his side finish the half strongly.



At the start of the second period, Zak Graham darts between two casual Casuals and hangs in the air to send a side foot volley into the top corner. At least, he would have done had he made contact. It really isn’t Graham’s day, as within the next minute, he sends a shot wide and not long after, when attempting to make space in the penalty box to take a great chance having done all the hard work, he dithers and is dispossessed.

However, on the hour and after a couple of changes, Sutton finally score, a corner bent beautifully by Ross Gaynor over the many heads to the far side of the six-yard box where Alan Bray drops his body slowly forward, his header easily hitting the back of the net. From thereon, despite a few frightening moments, Sutton stroll it, and have a couple of decent chances to take it out of reach, Warren McBean laying off to Lee Hall who crashes a shot which needs Casuals keeper Dave Tidy to palm it away from its bottom corner trajectory. Matt Gray later thunders into a tackle in the Casuals box which rather fortunately sends the ball rapidly towards goal, but Tidy makes a point blank save, and a minute later has to tip a stinging shot from Hall onto the post and out.

So not the authoritative performance that Sutton fans would perhaps have appreciated having turned out en masse, but they’ll be kind of used to it. That man Taz, a regular on non-league message boards, responded to this fixture in a fashion becoming typical of the Sutton support: “We gubbed 'em 1-0…Fcking have that you small amateur club at the bottom of Ryman 1 South!”.

Road to the Final
F: Tooting & Mitcham 4 Metropolitan Police 1 [at Sutton United FC]
SF: Metropolitan Police 1 Carshalton Athletic 0
R4: Egham Town 0 Metropolitan Police 1
R3: Egham Town 3 Sutton United 2
R2: Corinthian-Casuals 0 Sutton United 2
R1: Corinthian-Casuals 2 Kingstonian 1 (att. 161)

Links
Corinthian-Casuals website
Sutton United website

Bootle 1 New Mills 2

26aug06
North West Counties League Division Two
New Bucks Park, Netherton, Liverpool
att. 68

Hobo in my pocket #3

Blackburn Rovers 2 FC Red Bull Salzburg 0

28sep06
UEFA Cup 1st Round 2nd leg
Ewood Park, Blackburn
att. 18,888

Blackburn win 4-2 on aggregate.

Hobo in my pocket #2

Glasshoughton Welfare 2 Atherton Collieries 1

18nov06
FA Vase 2nd Round
Leeds Road, Glasshoughton, Castleford
att. 75

A rugby town and certainly a utilitarian town, won’t you join me on a day out to Castleford? Far from one of Yorkshire’s most picturesque places, the sides and centre of the pedestrian precinct are lined mostly with tarpaulin-covered market stalls and pound shops. A squatting Christmas store selling nothing but yuletide gear has overtaken one unit, and in the window stands a display of large, ropey mechanised tat so offensive, it might as well have been Allah’s naked arse rising upsettingly slowly out of the inflatable chimney, rather than a perky pink Santa. Quite the centrepiece for any front room this festive season, dig in chums. Stood next to it is five-feet of rubber globe, torturing a reindeer, snowman and a different Santa with never-ending flakes of snow. By comparison though it looks as classy, well frankly, it looks as classy as a dinner suit on a dirty dog.

There is also a Lords Mayors parade of charity shops, all twirling their altruistic batons between the Poundstretchers, while the bigger names are tucked away in the square parenthesis of a shopping centre that’s been glued onto the large indoor market.

A mile outside Castleford is Glasshoughton and its centrepiece is contained on a roundabout. The Glasshoughton Wheel of Light commemorates the colliery and coke works from which the town itself grew. The giveaway is ‘Welfare’, if you see that in a football teams name, this usually pinpoints a history intertwined with that of the mining industry. It is certainly no surprise to find a Working Man’s Club directly opposite the ground.

As you’ll have spotted, today’s opposition wear their history equally vividly within their name, yet come from way over the Pennines, this being a Northern Counties East vs. North West Counties inter-league battle. Yes, another FA competition to amuse myself with, now that the H&’Dub are out the Cup. The Vase has been criminally ignored in comparison to the Trophy on these pages. For sure, I covered both legs [#1, #2] of last year’s Nantwich v Cammell Laird semi-final, but that merely highlighted how much of a glory hunter I had become. Even this ain’t the ground floor though, there having been three rounds prior to this.

Yet here we are, at the grass roots, albeit with most of them roots covered with a smattering of autumn leaves. These have dropped from the dinner-hall queue of trees that line the ground behind the dark stand that looks as though it has burnt down in the past week. Twice. At this level, you kind of expect that, and it fits in with the days-gone-by, vaguely socialist, working class atmosphere of the place. What doesn’t so much is the gleaming new community centre that houses the dressing rooms, the bar and possibly the occasional jumble sale.

On the wall of the bar there’s a TV showing Scotland’s rugby encounter with the Pacific Islands but this is being largely ignored. Perhaps not such a hardcore rugby town after all then, although there are quite a few in here that pay no attention to the football that is about to start outside either.

They are perhaps wise to stay inside as a sharp wind has taken hold. It’s certainly a Yorkshire wind, quite laboured in its way, blowing the fallen leaves slowly across the rough pitch like an emphysemic bodybuilder pushing a bus.

As the game kicks off, it appears the home side have less to worry about in the opposition ranks as they have in their own, the lack of a call meaning one of the centre-backs poleaxes his right back with a high-leg clothesline, like a kid practising his karate moves on his timid cousin. Atherton capitalise on this early insecurity, taking pot shots from range but Glasshoughton’s stout keeper is content to flop upon them with heavy ease. Nevertheless it is the Lancashire side applying all the pressure, although suddenly, just as he’s almost completed his crossword and cream scone, the Atherton keeper has to make two sharp saves in a minute. He slaps away one stinger, while the other is jabbed directly upward with an arm motion similar to that which might be used by an exposed embezzler trying to escape a chasing pack of penniless investors by breaking through a painted shut skylight from below.

Half time is spent contemplating the home sides efforts to mop up the Atherton pressure on the flanks as well as the Glasshoughton player sporting a remarkable haircut that appears both braided like a ploughed field on the top yet as candyfloss fluffy as a Finnish mist at the sides and in between. Work in progress perhaps. Those things occupy me for so long from my, err, special seat, that I miss the first minute of the second half. It is during this minute that Glasshoughton score, or so I gather from the muffled cheer. It is clear that the team talk has been vigorous and effective, so much so that just a couple of minutes after the goal, Glasshoughton win a penalty, but Frightwig fires the kick wide.

It is the hour mark before Atherton re-impose themselves and they come within an inch of scoring. The striker and the keeper collide as the latter goes to catch and the ball bounces through his beckoning arms and towards the gaping net before a last-gasp foot clears it. Undeterred Atherton scramble in an equaliser from the resulting corner, turned in despite the presence of many a leg. They almost get a second a minute later as a lob beats the keeper but the bounce is such that the ball jumps over the bar.

Undeflated by this, Glasshoughton regain the lead a few minutes later. A cross is flicked on via a head and an outstretched foot directs it into the far corner. “What do you mean, ‘Fuck Off’?” asks an irate Atherton defender of his colleague, apparently discerning a grey area within the phrasing.

As the game draws to a close, Atherton have a number of chances to level but manage only to exasperate their small band of followers stood behind the goal. Thus Glasshoughton move one step closer to Wembley, despite having a fairly poor league campaign thus far, and with the floodlights switched off almost as soon as the last player enters the dressing rooms, they certainly won’t say no to the bit of extra cash that continued success in the Vase will bring.

So, Glasshoughton, well Castleford as a whole really, is a modest and old-fashioned kind of place. To fully round out the picture of this part of Yorkshire though, I should tell you about a page from today’s matchday programme. Above the advert for the Castleford & District funeral service is one for Houghton Pet Supplies, which uses its half page to market just its three most vital assets: “Free Delivery. Large Car Park. Pigeon Specialists.”

Road to Wembley
F: AFC Totton 1 Truro City 3 (att. 27,754)
SF2: Billingham Synthonia 1 AFC Totton 2 [4-5 pens] (att. 2,386)
SF1: AFC Totton 1 Billingham Synthonia 2 (att. 1,332)
QF: AFC Totton 2 Wimborne Town 1 aet (att. 1,309)
5R: Wimborne Town 4 Street 0 (att. 738)
4R: Wimborne Town 4 Glasshoughton Welfare 2 aet (att. 596)
3R: Glasshoughton Welfare 4 Winterton Rangers 3 (att. 75)
2R: Glasshoughton Welfare 2 Atherton Collieries 1
1R: Glasshoughton Welfare 3 Easington Colliery 1 (att. 51)
1R: Atherton Collieries 4 Winsford United 0 (att. 63)
2QR: Glasshoughton Welfare 2 West Allotment Celtic 0 (att. 49)
2QR: Atherton Collieries 2 Penrith 1 (att. 53)

Links
Glasshoughton Welfare website
Atherton Collieries @ Wikipedia

Braintree Town 0 Havant & Waterlooville 0

02dec06
Conference South
Cressing Road Stadium, Braintree
att. 519

Nil nil. The drab un-monogrammed hankie. The empty washing line. The flaccid Christmas stocking. Nil all draws exist only to suck all the goodness from your watching eyeballs, and leave you vim free and open to suggestion from those campaigning for the benefits of a life of apathy. Well, I say campaigning, it’s more a shrug followed by a heavy flop into a beanbag. You can flop too if you wish. Y’know, whatever.

So zero goals = zero entertainment, right? Well yeah and no, cos I’m not going to tell you today’s game was a classic, but it’ll do for us. It was a middling game in a ground with not a great deal to distinguish it, except perhaps for the small potting shed positioned, like a prototype Tardis put aside for scrap, along the terracing at the half-way line.

All the evidence points then to a clear truism. That nil-nil’s exist only to warn one what the feeling that follows our final breath, but before our eyelids fall shut, will be like. Well, I’ve certainly seen games like that. Watching H&W draw without goals at home to Crawley on a Sunday in 2001, the day after we’d lost 4-0 away to Burton (this being during a particular insane end-of-season fixture pile-up, 17 games between 29th March and 5th May folks) was indeed much like watching the last drop of moisture evaporate from your long dead pet guinea pig. They are not all like that though, and I’ve seen goalless games with plenty to thrill. That doesn’t describe today exactly, but there have certainly been a lot worse.

Today, it was just a bit grey. Nothing wrong with that in the wider scheme though, as I’ll explain later. We had chances. Mo Harkin crashing over from the edge of the six yard box as the ball dropped onto his waiting foot like a feather on an Everest window’s sill. That was one. Richard Pacquette ballooning on the turn from a similar position. That was another. It’s fair to say though that Braintree had better ones. The top of the bar was flicked by a bouncing effort. One shot sent the back of the stand into uproar before they saw the ball continue its progression beyond the goal, having taken a detour round the tradesman’s. Most alarmingly, a goal line save from our Shane Gore was required in the last few moments to keep things even.

Yet we leave with a point and that could be vital as we continue to challenge for promotion. Our cup run may now be over, but we’ve got plenty else to keep us occupied. In two weeks we will host the increasingly accomplished Conference National side Gravesend & Northfleet in the 1st Round Proper of the FA Trophy. Another good test against higher level opposition to excite players and us fans alike just there, but add in the fact that the Fleet are managed by Liam Daish, one of the management duo that took us to them Trophy semi’s four seasons ago and arguably thee iconic figure that epitomises the rapidly shifting ambitions and expectations at our young club, and it becomes tastier still.

However that is still just a distraction from the main aim, that being to join Gravesend, amongst others, in the Conference top flight. Currently we occupy the final place in the play off zone, with games in hand on most of those above. Furthermore we face the side two places above, Salisbury City, next weekend and find ourselves presently as clear leaders in the form table. No defeat at home (we’re not counting Fratton Park as genuinely home here) since the opening day of the season and, in fact, no league defeats at all in nearly three months.



With that in mind, I’ll happily take a point away from home against as determined and defensively well organised a side as Braintree. It’ll be those moments of keeping clean sheets (ten in all competitions thus far) when the creativity isn’t hitting its potential heights, of digging in when opponents can put up a genuinely tough fight, that will prove decisive. If we have to get used to that in away games to get to that goal, I’ll take it and turn up for as many nil nil’s as you can throw at my increasingly excitable self. Indeed, it was only ten days ago I was watching us at Hayes and that was just as attritional for the viewer, neutral or partisan, as today. Yet we won that one, with an 87th minute goal, despite playing for a great deal of the game with one man fewer, before the ref kindly evened things up.

Sometimes it’ll work like that, sometimes it’ll work like today, riding the luck and that. However, as long as we do keep with the motion of the Conference South ocean, we’ll be in contention come the end of the season, and that thought should be all the inspiring our players should need.

Links
Braintree Town website
Havant & Waterlooville website