Humble Folk Without Temptation

South Park (Reigate)  1  Leatherhead  0

Isthmian League – Division One South Central

Admission / Programme – £9 / £2

It had been an apocalyptic week, it felt like the contents of the oceans had been sucked into the sky and unceremoniously dumped on the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

It’s been a far cry from the heady days of Mid July when we were about to spontaneously combust as rivers and reservoirs ran dry. Welcome to the twenty first century on Planet Earth, a planet that in another 150 years will no doubt either be on fire or under a mass of water, according to Gary Lineker.

In fact, there’s no point anyone having children anymore, I mean, I fully expect my great, great, great grandchildren to either melt or drown, so let’s just accept we’re on a fast track to self-destruction, but at the same time, it’s great to see the price of petrol coming down, it makes long distance trips to football that little bit more affordable……

So, being blunt, as I rose from my slumber as the house was burning kilowatts of energy by the second, it was quite clear that I wasn’t going to be watching a game on grass today. The South of England was largely under water, with more to come, so it was time to play the 3G / 4G card, but at the same time being a little cautious as images from the South West showed the plastic at Plymouth Marjon where myself and Mrs H went recently, underwater!

South Park (Reigate) looked a winner, a new venue, a local derby against Leatherhead, and an early tweet to suggest waders and a snorkel would not be needed, fire up the Quattro, we are going to Surrey, lock up your cockerpoo’s and stock up on dry roasted peanuts fellas, the further advance was in the bank and I reckoned it might just cover the cost of a pint!

Right, an apology to South Park, largely because they will be absolutely sick and tired of references to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s quite superb animated comedy about four kids in a Colorado town. I can imagine some of the comments now…..

“Do you have ample parking, day and night…..”

“Did you ever have a player called Kenny, that got killed, the bastards……”

“That player called Kyle, was his Mum a big fat bitch….”

Anyway, childish I know, but I still say the opening fifteen minutes of the South Park Movie was the funniest fifteen minutes of viewing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, but let’s leave that for now and focus on the football club.

Formed in 1897, they played in the local leagues for over one hundred years until 2006 when significant ground improvements saw them in a position to make a leap up to the semi-professional Combined Counties League. They won promotion to the Premier Division in 2011 and then a resounding Championship win in 2014 saw them promoted to the Isthmian League and Step 4 of the first time in the clubs long history. Cups wise, they did once get to the Fourth Round Qualifying of the FA Cup, losing to the local Plod, whereas they had a pretty impressive run the FA Trophy one year, finally succumbing to Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park.

At the start of the current season though, they decided to add the suffix of their home town of Reigate to their name. Clearly for those unfamiliar, it does give the club more of a local identity, and of course, it may also attract more local interest from those perhaps not aware of the club and it’s rise up the football pyramid.

The journey down was an absolute Ken Doddle, the M25 behaved impeccably and soon I was on the road into Reigate, a town I have neither visited or travelled through previously. Like many Surrey towns on the edges of the M25, you ain’t getting a pad for £70,000 like you can in Doncaster, in fact £70,000 might just about get you a garage. Yes, Reigate is very nice, very desirable and it has a one way system round the town centre that gives you ample opportunity to stare into shop windows at all the things the kind of money that we Northerners don’t have, can buy you. I always say, if you have a Pret a Manger as opposed to a Greggs, you know you’ve made it!

I did think once about doing South Park on the train, and to be fair when I looked at it more closely, I thought it might have been a bit far to walk, well, I can tell you having driven from the railway station to the ground on the very South West edge of the town, I wouldn’t fancy having to walk it on a wet day, it’s bloody miles!

I did eventually find it, down Whitehall Lane, and of course, ample parking was available in the nearby school, which in itself was less than a minutes walk from the clubhouse.  The clubhouse sits at the top of the venue, and I have to say it was very nice and very reasonably priced, I’d even go as far as to say that it was full of humble folk without temptation……

The bar filled up, with a good number of Tanners fans flocking in for what was their first ever league game against their near neighbours, but getting into the ground itself wasn’t going to prove to be that straightforward. The path that lead from the clubhouse to the turnstiles was flooded, despite the valiant attempts to clear it, so we had to traipse over a field, which was somewhat sodden and slippy, but thankfully no disasters and no compensation claims were forthcoming, and before long the crowd of around 260 were happily inside the Stade de la Eric Cartman.

The new 4G pitch is a very recent addition, and as usually comes with that, you get some very nice pitch side barriers. The dressing room and tea bar building sits on the half way line, while the only spectator accommodation sits behind the South goal in the shape of two Atcost style stands, one slightly bigger than the other. To be fair though, getting to them was something of a challenge, only the South end of the ground was largely flooded, including an area of the 4G albeit the area in question was not actually part of the playing surface.

South Park took the lead in the second minute via a low shot from Sam King, and it was around that time that a further biblical rainstorm engulfed Surrey and probably reduced property values by a small percentage. The first half saw the hosts pretty much in control of proceedings with Leatherhead seriously lacking in ideas. In terms of league placings by the way, South Park are very much in contention for a play-off spot, Leatherhead are very much in contention for very little.

The second half saw Leatherhead have far more of the ball and they did start to make progress in wide areas, but despite numerous balls being put into the danger areas, they had no one up front to convert the chances. I could revert to the old adage about playing until midnight, I won’t, but you know what I mean….

So that was it, a 1-0 win for South Park that they absolutely loved, beating Leatherhead is clearly a popular event in Reigate, and the on the field celebrations were testimony to that. The getaway was easy, the roads were clear and I was back in the grim North by 7.45pm. Furthermore, no one killed Kenny either…..