R-Roulette

Raynes Park Vale  1  Marlow  4

Isthmian League – Division One South Central

Admission / Programme - £10 / £3

The frozen tundra’s of the UK were starting to thaw, but it was to be a race against time, would the increase in temperatures happen quickly enough to impact the football pitches? It wasn’t looking great to be fair come Friday afternoon, games in the professional ranks were already being called off, and with pitch inspections being called early on the Saturday, you did think the weather Gods were going to be the winners again.

Thorpey (Mark from Alfreton) phoned me Friday teatime to ascertain my plans, only the Alfreton Town v South Shields match had gone by the wayside, and whatever I was planning on doing, he wanted a piece of it. I told him to leave it with me, this needed careful consideration.

I had two games on the agenda initially, Redbridge v Brentwood Town and Raynes Park Vale v Marlow in the Isthmian League, both on grass, both inside the M25 but in opposite directions once you left the M1. Both were a risk of course, so if I was going to go for it, I needed a safe back up. Rayners Lane v Chalfont St Peter, on plastic, and a home club looking good for promotion to Step 4. They played in Harrow, so whereas the first two matches would have involved either a left or right at the M25 junction of the M1, Rayners Lane in taxi speak was ‘straight on’.

So that was the plan, I left my call to Thorpey until Saturday morning and ran through my suggestion, we head down the M1, knowing we had the plastic, but if we got an affirmative from the grass ranks, we would go for it. Thorpey was up for it, and his ATFC supporting mate Callum was joining us.

Callum was on pitch inspection alert, we got an affirmative from RPV as we passed Northampton, and as we closed in on the M25 having passed Luton, nothing was forthcoming from Redbridge, but then the call came, it was game on, so we had two on grass. A quick decision had to be made, RPV v Marlow was two sides in the play-off mix, and according to the sat nav the difference in journey time was only fifteen minutes, so the decision was made, plus, RPV did come across as very confident. We went Westbound.

The sat nav lied, the exit at the A3 and the roadworks that currently welcome you took a bit longer to get through than first suggested, but not to worry, we were soon parking up in close proximity to the Cavern pub in Raynes Park, you see Thorpey was equipped with the Good Beer Guide! The local roads were on best behaviour, and within a few minutes of leaving the pub we’d sorted the one way system, gone past Raynes Park Station, and were heading down Grand Drive to the ground. At ten past two we were parked up at the side of some outer pitches being used by the junior sides.

Raynes Park Vale Football Club are at Step 4 this season after winning the Combined Counties League Premier Division South last season, at a canter to be fair, winning 32 of their 38 games. The club have been punching at the higher end of the table for a few years now having been stalwarts of the competition since they arrived in the CoCo back in 1995.

When I say 1995, RPV is the result of a merger between Raynes Park (a Surrey Combination side) and Malden Vale who at the time were members of the Isthmian League, plying their craft in the lower reaches of the competition.

The ground on Grand Drive was originally the home of Malden Vale, and located close to the edges of Wimbledon, it’s set in a large expanse. The pitch itself slopes slightly from South to North, which when stood on the South side gives you excellent views looking North towards Wimbledon.

In terms of facilities, the ground is currently a work in progress. The clubhouse and dressing rooms are located outside of the ground behind the East end goals, where the turnstiles are, and once through the gates having received the friendly welcome, to your left are two small covered areas behind the goal, both looking like they’ve been in situ for a good number of years. The only other cover on the ground is the seated stand on the South side, which does look like it’s had a recent refurb in terms of the seating and the cladding.

The club talked in the programme about the improvements they are doing to the ground to both maintain Step 4 status, and indeed get it up to Step 3 status which from a performance point of view is the place they want to get to.

One part of the ground that doesn’t need any improvement work is the pitch, considering the weather, it was in superb nick, and while players were slipping at times, no way was it ever going to be called off.

So they won the CoCo last year, beating last weeks blog victims Badshot Lea to the title, and this time around they are nestled in the play-off places, having lead the table at one point a month or so ago. Having spoken to my mate Dave from Leatherhead, who has local knowledge, it seems part of the driving force behind the club is the Gallagher family. When I say family, Conor Gallagher who plays for Chelsea and England, well he has four brothers, three of whom are involved at RPV. Josh is the Manager, Jake plays in Midfield while Jordan plays upfront and gets all the goals (he was suspended for today’s game). In case you were interested, the other brother, Dan, plays for Dorking Wanderers.

RPV v Marlow, on paper it looked tasty, and over 300 turned up to watch it. But to be fair it was effectively game over with just over twenty minutes played when a clinical visiting side created three chances and put all of them away with some aplomb.

Naheer-Omar Nawaf opened the scoring in the tenth minute before the evergreen Dave Tarpey netted twice in a seven minute spell. Tarpey was recently at Leatherhead, but previously had prolific spells at Maidenhead United and Barnet.

Nathan Lewis pulled a goal back ten minutes before the break, and despite RPV having plenty of territory and possession in the second period, Marlow were happy to soak it up without ever really feeling under any great pressure in front of goal.

Any modicum of doubt was washed away as we moved into injury time when Joshua Broom ran free from the half way line to score a fourth and final goal for the away side.

To be fair though, it had been an entertaining game, between two very decent sides who you expect will be in the mix come the end of the season. The journey back was a veritable doddle, back through the door just after 8pm, it had been a calculated gamble well worth taking.