Home Alone

Sutton Common Rovers  1  Northwood  5

Isthmian League – First Division South Central

Admission / Programme – £5 / £2.50

Over the past couple of years, usually as we close in on the festive period, Mrs H, her Mother and Master H try and have a weekend away, doing what families do on weekends away.

That leaves me home alone, so what I’ve tried to do when these periods of loneliness and isolation are on the horizon, is extricate myself from my misery and head off somewhere on the train to watch the football.

This year, with a trip to York planned for Mrs H & Co, it just so happened that both Steve and I had independently selected a game in the capital, and that game was between Hanworth Villa and Leatherhead. Steve was going to have been down in London since the Wednesday, we were going to meet at the game, and then I would get a lift back with him via a toilet stop at Toddington Services.

With one way ticket booked, all was good, and on the Friday night as I was driving back from York having dropped them off (no trains for Mrs H – it was a chauffeur service), I began to think about the following day and the sub-zero weather conditions. Many games were off already, and more were likely to go by the wayside.

I’d got some alternative plastic options, but I did need to check in with Steve to see what his intentions were, only his movements were pretty pivotal to the original plan. I sent a text, and was met with a quick reply, it seems in Central London the harsh frost had been largely kept at bay, Steve was somewhat surprised that we may have a problem.

This lead to a phone call once he was out of his West End stage show, and having talked about the options, Steve was of the view that if Hanworth was off, he was going to try the 1pm kick off at Littlehampton and if that was off, it was homeward bound. I’d already got a return ticket in the basket at a pretty cheap price anyway, just in case, so my suggestion was that we agreed to do our own thing in this instance as the whole thing was a bit too precarious.

I ordered the ticket, had another look at the plastics, came up with a travel plan, and went to bed, it was to be an early start.

Belper Railway Station at 6.30am for stage one, with several layers on, the train to Derby was on time and then it was a change to the Tamworth bound train. Once in Tamworth, it was a bit of a wait for the quarter to nine direct non-stopper to London Euston. The train was rammed, an earlier one had been cancelled, I got a seat but many others didn’t, people wouldn’t move out of reserved seats, it was all a bit fraught, but we arrived just after ten, with a sufficient delay to claim a bit of compensation, so a chunk of my return ticket was covered by that!

It was sardines on the underground, and I think the whole travel situation had been exacerbated by the fact we had a train strike the following weekend, so everyone who wanted a London run before Christmas was doing it on this specific day. I didn’t have long on the tube though, into Victoria, up to the Spoons in the centre of the station concourse and a period of time to keep abreast of the situation.

First things first, Hanworth went, so did Littlehampton so with Steve updated he could do an about turn. I had my eye on the artificial stuff, with Sutton Common Rovers being the first choice and South Park Reigate being the back up plan. My only nervousness being the sight of many games on plastic being postponed due to the rubber crumb being frozen. I kept a close eye on things and as time went on all appeared to be positive so it was the East Grinstead bound train, and I was to exit at Upper Warlingham.

Sutton Common Rovers are a relatively young club, and even younger when it comes to Saturday football having only recently transferred over from Sunday’s. They were formed in 1978 and had various names, usually linked to either sponsors or pubs, being a Sunday side. But then after moving into Saturday football, using the name SCR, they went via the Surrey South East Combination League, to the Middlesex County League and into the Combined Counties League in 2008, where they re-named themselves Mole Valley SCR.

They bounced around the two divisions of the Combined Counties League, playing home games at the likes of Carshalton Athletic, Leatherhead and Cobham, but then as Covid hit, SCR (they were back as plain old Sutton Common Rovers by this point), were one of the sides offered a chance of a move to Step 4 and by having agreed a ground share at Sutton United, they made it into the Isthmian League.

Of course, Sutton United, once promoted to the Football League, had to rip up the plastic pitch so SCR were forced to look for an alternative venue, so they headed a bit further East to the South of Croydon and the Church Road home of Whyteleafe, or AFC Whyteleafe as they are now known.

Whyteleafe has a couple of train stations (with Whyteleafe in the title) but it appears the best service to use is the Upper Warlingham train, which takes you to Whyteleafe! It was only by looking at Google Maps that I worked that one out to be fair.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years travelling by train around the Greater London is that while the trains to and from the capital are ridiculously rammed, the ones in and out of the centre to the edges are about twenty carriages long and have approximately 2.3 passengers per carriage, and it just so happened that I had the referee for my game sat in the carriage with me!

I got chatting to Chris Williams and the subject got onto the matter of games being postponed on plastic pitches due to being frozen, it was also followed up as we parted ways by me suggesting in the politest possible sense that he might not want to postpone this game given how far I’d travelled!

Anyhow, I made my way via a boozer to the ground which was a short five minute trot over another railway line and down Church Road which had a lovely rural feel to it. The ground then appears on your left hand side, and in terms of a description, here we go…..

The clubhouse sits in the car park to the left as you walk in, but then to your right are the turnstiles which bring you in half way down the touchline on the Eastern half of the pitch. Moving anti clockwise you have the dressing rooms and a tea bar up some steps behind the goal, while adjacent to it is a large stand with both seating and standing room, raised a good height above the pitch.

On the South side of the ground is a narrow path with a smaller area of cover down towards the West end, while behind the West goal is a further area of cover with 'Whyteleafe' painted on the rear. Moving round the North side you have a small seated stand that looks like the original area of cover at the ground, while next to it is a club shop.

It was a very good ground, lots of features, but the most important feature was of course the pitch. I had a very quick word with Chris again in the clubhouse before the game and he confirmed he was happy with it, although there was an area which was white with frost, albeit not frozen underneath.

So, the game, Northwood were top, SCR were bottom six, and it kind of panned out as per the league table would suggest it ought to. To be fair though the first half was pretty even until Luke Tingey scored for the visitors on the stroke of half time.

Any hopes SCR had of getting back into the game were quickly extinguished at the start of the second period when Andy Lomas and Juwon Akintunde both scored within five minutes of getting going. Micah Jackson bagged a fourth, Josh Helmore got a fifth and then in injury time Brian Testolin got a consolation for SCR. 65 spectators watched the game.

I had to leg it at the final whistle, my train was just after 5pm, and I made it with a couple of minutes to spare. Once back at Victoria it was rammed, but Euston was reached without feeling the urge to launch a flying head butt in anyone’s direction. A quick pint in one of my favourite London boozers, The Doric, was taken before the train, and after sprinting down the ramp once the platform was announced, I managed to knock a few old ladies out of the way and got myself a seat on another sardine tin of a coach.

Connections were made with no issues, and home was reached before 11pm. All was good in York it seemed and I was to go and fetch them the following day.

I hate being home alone……