After last week’s match at Braintree, one that you may recall that we actually bothered to cover on here, our new Manager Chris Agutter said in his post match interview “That’s the worst you’ll see whilst I’m manager”. And we all tutted, rolled our eyes and pinched the bridge of our noses. Chris, Chris, Chris. Mate. We all know you’re trying to gee people up, be positive and all that. And fair play to you fella, we do appreciate the effort. Honestly. But fucking hell, you had to go and say that with the Cup tie at Farnham looming didn’t you?
Big sigh.
As I touched upon in that last entry, the 4th Qual FA Cup tie was not exactly what you’d call highly anticipated on this manor. I think ‘dreaded’ might be a fairer description. One of those games you just know you’re on a hiding to nothing, much like the Burgess Hill tie at GGL a few years back. We all knew we’d get beat that day and no one was surprised when we did. Today’s much the same, a side leaking goals that can’t buy a win up against a side on the up and with absolutely nothing to lose. Recipe for disaster, especially in a competition as unforgiving as the FA Cup.
It seems the BBC smelt blood too as they of course picked the game for their iPlayer ‘Red Button’ coverage they do for the early rounds. Can’t say I blame ’em, I would have too. Giantkillings ain’t just for the 3rd round you know. The other issue with this is that it means we’re playing our umpteenth 12:30 ko of the season and to make matters worse, some dick’s closed Victoria for the weekend, meaning the usual route of up to Clapham and back down is out the window. This leaves us mostly either shuffling over to Wimbledon and changing at Surbiton, or going south from Sutton into the sticks and looping round via Guildford. Such fun!
I elect to do Wimbledon via tram. So quick bus to Wandle Park, tram, Greggs at Wimbledon and off we go. Magnum PI also fancies this, but thinks my departure time of 8:30 is cutting it too fine. “You’ll never make that 09:19 to Surbiton leaving that late!” he advises. Fine fine, I’ll try and get out for 8 then. Although Steve is not so keen on such an early depart “I’ll see you down there!” is all he’ll offer, clearly preferring his pit to awayday lads lads lads banter. Poor form sir, although not quite as poor as Sutton’s. Which is no doubt why he’s having a lie in. Still, against my own better judgement I drag my carcass out of bed and am out about on time.
As I stroll to the stop, I message Magnum to let him know I’ve probably missed the bus and not to wait. “I’ve just woken up!!” he replies “On my way to the bus now”. Wanker! All that lecturing and he’s almost stood me up the bastard! A 407 rocks up soon and he’s waiting up the top of the hill when we arrive. Disappointing. Turns out he’d been out for a few last night and got gassing, being booted from the pub at 1.15am and not getting in until two. “You really should know better at your age!”. We hit Wandle Park a few mins later and only have to wait one more for a tram to the land of litter picking rodents. Here we bag a quick Greggs for breakfast and some train tickets and mooch about munching as other familiar faces appear.
Porn Star and Nutsack are about, along with Alan. Soon afer, hopalong 4Days and Lil’ Chris appear as tales of fuckwittery elsewhere appear on the Whatsapp group. It seems Chalmers has not only got on the wrong train at Redhill, setting him back 30 mins, but he’s then left his phone charger on the wrong train in his panic. “Dozy cunt” is all I can offer by way of sympathy. Next leg is to Surbiton, with a short wait. Here a load of the Yoof firm are hanging about, bags of cans to hand. They’re clearly up for a day out. On our next service, we head south to the wilds of Surrey and tip out on time just before half ten. 4Days decides to cab it the short distance given it would be a massive waste of VDT to try and walk it in his current state, whilst I and Magnum get our march on.
We reach the Tellers Arms and find Indy, Rax and a recently arrived and chargerless Chalmers awaiting. Right, pint. Watching this lot sober is just not an option currently. We sink a couple and over time, others roll in. First 4Days finally appears, grumbling about a cab journey that’s taken him half way around town to get here, the Steve arrives and then Mr X finally wanders in to complete the crowd. After that we spot Bob & Cathy and assorted other boats. The away end is 400 sell out today after all. God only knows why! We decide to stick it out here until the game, as moving will just waste VDT and come 12 noon, we’re making tracks and 4Days is bagging another sherbert.
The walk is brief and after less than half a mile, we duck down a side street that soon turns into a country lane, then almost a pathway and we’re at the turnstiles. Annoyingly, the super high tech ticket bought online for this one and that insisted it needed to be in a Google wallet and that I needed ‘NFC’ enabled is simply for show as the lad on the gate just looks at it, clicks a counter in his hand and waves us in. Sakes! All that tech prep for nothing. And I wanted to see Mr X struggle with it too, could have been the highlight of the day.
Aziaya, Jones, Pruti, Tizzard, Taylor, Phipps, Ogbonna, Simper, Harris, Nadesan, Wadham SUBS: Bell, Dabre, Njoku, Boutin, Eccleston, Vincent, Eyers
Now, we’ve all been watching this stuff for years and as we all well know, if you’re away in the Cup against lower ranked oppo and aren’t exactly in sparkling form yourselves, you keep it tight early doors, don’t do anything fucking stupid and take the sting out of the tie. As in exactly what we didn’t do at Chertsey last year. So what do these absolute knobbers go and do?? Defend even worse than they have to date and concede inside 3 minutes. Twats. Harris loses the ball in their half, it’s knocked up the line, the lad seemingly has nowhere to go and yet he still skips past Taylor like he’s not there and sweeps the ball across field to a bloke in so much space he may as well be an astronaut. Touch, sits a defender on his arse and trundles it into the corner. 1-0. It’s like watching primary school kids take on pros at 5-a-side. Absolutely fucking pathetic.
Of course, it’s at our end so not only do we get to see this shit in full 4K HD, but all their lads have a wander over for a bit of the old text book lower league gloating right in front of the away end. Yeah yeah, take a number and get in line ya pricks, as there’s 11 other twats in front of you in the queue for a volley right now and none of them are wearing your colours oddly enough. Almost as frustratingly, within 2 minutes, we’re level. First corner is won, Simps sticks it in the box and Phipps exposes defending as bad, if not marginally worse than ours to meet it about as unmarked as you can get and nut in the leveller. It’s really that easy. Any chance we wrap this lot up now? No? Oh, ok then.
The rest of the half is pretty tedious stuff really. As we revert to our good old pass it sideways at the back at the sort of tempo that would make a gammy legged tortoise yawn. However, most of us aren’t that fussed as it largely keeps the ball away from their players and prevents them for doing anything meaningful with it. Although Aziaya does need to make one reasonable save at his near post. We do create the best other chance of the half though about midway through when a long one forward finds Nadesan, he holds up and brings in Jones overlapping inside and he immediately pokes it across the box for Simper in acres. But despite his shot beating the keeper, a defender’s back to hoick it off the line. Typical.
Half time and with Chalmers having announced they’re already almost out of grub, I don’t bother with a munch and instead just go for a piss, instantly brightening up my afternoon. Amusement is also provided by a reminder on my phone that I’d set an alarm for, to remind me of my ticket being on my phone. It was set for 2pm. Genius that Taz. Great at planning, shit at execution as always! Back in the stand just before the restart, someone mutters about how we can’t start this half like the first one and of course, the useless twats we employ start this fucking half exactly like the first one. Ball wide up the line into acres, the bloke stands up Pruti, who doesn’t get remotely close enough, low ball across and tap in middle. 2-1. I may at this point have used the word ‘cunts’ to describe some people in Yellow shirts. And I make no apologies for it.
We of course try to make things even worse within a couple of minutes with some more painfully low rent Man City cosplay bollocks at the back, but thankfully Aziaya is smart to the edge of his box to block the shot after we’re cheaply given away possession about 25 yards out letting the lad have a 1 on 1. The gaffer’s clearly seen enough as he hauls off Wadham for Njoku to, hopefully, give us some bit going forwards. This helps. Just before the hour, we finally play a glimpse of the sort of stuff we should be playing and after some neat close control from Harris sees him spin away from his man in between the lines, it creates enough space for Ogbonna to overlap and his low centre is turned in from close range by Njoku.
Now can we please, PLEASE stop being useless twats lads? No? Ah bollocks. Njoku nearly gives us the lead a minute later when a ball forward is flicked on by Nadesan and he races in behind. But he’s forced wide enough where his poked finish beats the keeper but is intercepted just before the line by a defender. Seconds later, long ball down our left again, lad in acres again, ball swept across the box and their 7 is hooking it beyond David into the corner. Our capacity for failure knows no bounds at this stage it seems.
From here, there is much plodding, much passing side to side and much trying to fuck it up worse than we have already. What there isn’t is much in the way of threat from us. Taylor does flick one corner towards the far corner, but again a defender is well placed to nod it away from practically on the line. Our next moment is with 5 to go, Nadesan onto a Harris ball over the top, but the angle is against him and the keeper saves with his legs. But that’s largely all she wrote and as the board goes up for the standard 6 added minutes, the first two are pissed away with a weak free kick down in front of us and their 2 pretending to have cramp. Cue more gloating wankery from a couple of home players. Nice one, cheers.
Of course most of the added is spent in our half whilst they try and run the clock down in the corners. Then as time expires and we’re officially into whatever the soft as shit ref adds on for that lad sitting down for no reason whatsoever 6 minutes ago. Thankfully for us, it’s just about enough. They try to keep it down in the far corner, but Taylor digs it out. Couple of quick passes later and we’re out into open country. The ball is swept across with an urgency rarely seen today and Boutin brings it up the park. Pruti moves it onto Njoku wide and he simply drives at the lad.
He gets to the bye line, pulls it back and Harris appears on the peno spot to rattle it low into the back of the net past the keeper and a couple on the line. 3-3 and we’re a good minute over those six added. You lucky lucky bastards. There’s enough time to restart, but not to mount any other sort of attack before the final whistle and it’s all back to GGL to sort this shit out once and for all on Tuesday. Still, it means we can at least give that 8 of theirs some shit for his earlier slightly misplaced confidence. Yeah, you mate. Suck your mum.
We file out and back up the lane with the intent of getting a pint. We head into the Wheatsheaf about halfway back to the earlier hostelry and get some beers in. Sadly, given they’re close to the ground, they’re having to serve in plastics. “Police orders” shrugs the harassed barmaid. Sakes, we can’t even get a proper pint in!! We do two here while we all re-assemble (mostly waiting on 4Days to hobble up the hill) before we trundle over the road to the Queens Head, bidding farewell to Steve. We do one here and then Magnum does the off (a cricket do back in the Smoke) along with PC do the off. We then aim to get closer to the station and cut through to Cobbetts up the road to settle in for a while.
A couple rounds pass here, mainly as it takes the Welshman about a week to walk it. A couple of lads at the bar comment on how bang lucky we’d got and no one’s disagreeing with them. There’s also a Sutton sticker still in the khazis that must be a good 4 years old at least. 4 Days also gets some hiccups that annoy everyone, we talk Cape Verde’s pending World Cup qualification and the fact that the boozer we’re in was named after a former Prime Minister and not only that, he was born in the actual building! Always where the culture is us. Yes, I did say culture. Eventually we decide on a train back home and 4days sets off ahead to make it in time. Of course, we arrive outside just as he’s coating off some driver who’s not been quite as careful as he’d have liked around the temporarily disabled as he was crossing. Standard.
We debate having one more in Wimbledon, but as we change again at Surbiton, the next Thameslink is running late and the three after that are cancelled. So all the Sutton lot decide to knock it on the head and make that timely late runner back to the republic. With the tram fine, I instead go in search of food and settle for a massively expensive 5 Guys burger and chips, that at 21 quid offers infinitely more VFM than Sutton have at almost any point this season. Mainly as I get so many chips, I’m still eating them as the tram passes through Purley Way about 20 minutes after I’ve left Wimbledon.
Thankfully, a 410 arrives just as I get to the stop at Wandle Park and a few minutes later I’m comfortably back at HQ with a pint of squash just after 9pm and Mrs Taz realising by the look on my face that discussing my day isn’t really on the agenda, so we just quietly watch a shit film instead.
Stick your cup magic up your bollocks.
Taz