Fortune Favours the Bald

As the champagne was being sprayed all round the joint and our extraordinary group of players went through their party moves to the sounds of their enormous travelling boom box Taz lent across to me and said “So, d'you think you’ve got enough material for the blog then...”

Football. I mean, bloody hell Isn’t it?

New Forest Yeti

Everyone loves a good old cup run.  It gets the blood pumping and when it involves trips to football grounds you wouldn’t normally get to or think of visiting it can also broaden your horizons as well. And as my horizons are currently my front room and my back yard, here's my post-season take on some FA Vase exploits from this season that sparked off some of the kind of old school hi jinks at the lower rungs of the senior game that are light years away from the greed-fuelled, phoney VAR controversy of the Premier League. You're welcome.

The Last Game in London

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says “may you live in interesting times”.  Well, that all depends on how you define interesting doesn’t it? And if you find an endless carnival of death, crisis and chaos a turn-on then you must be having the absolute time of your fucking life right now. If, like me, you prefer a bit of peace and quiet, a nice cup of splosh, a custard slice and some old black and white episodes of On The Buses on the box then you have pretty much had a gutful of “interesting” as it goes.

Beddington Corner FC

I’m a sucker for old football clubs and grounds that are no longer with us and after the stunning response to the pieces I wrote up on Banstead Mental Hospital FC and the long-lost Mitcham Stadium it became clear that many others are as well and I had been casting around for another contender.

Come On Eileen

Aah, The Head. When I first started following Sutton, Leatherhead were real rivals in the old Rothmans Isthmian League and in that golden era for their football club without a shadow of a doubt one of the top non–league sides in the land, when there were certainly plenty of contenders kicking about. Of course, Sutton were no mugs in those days either with Ted Powell and Larry Pritchard running the show on and off the pitch and it is a measure of the attacking talent in the squad that we were able to release Chris Kelly, the putative Leatherhead Lip, and pack him off down the A24 where he would later assume national celebrity status.

Smoke Filled Rooms

Here’s how it cracks along at the workers’ collective you know and love as Gandermomium. Generally, about once a month, the Editor in Chief will get in a panic in the post-match club bar as he realises no one is booked in to file copy for a number of looming games and begins the hunt for a “volunteer”. And it is at this point I do what all older fellas who have been round the block a few times do. I cop a fucking deaf ‘un don’t I? Fylde away? What? Sorry mate, about half past seven I think, bloody noisy in here isn’t it?

Dirty Barry's Dirty Weekend

Back in the seventies – will you stop fucking groaning at the back – back in the seventies the Dirty Weekend was a staple of British comedy and as much a part of popular culture as Glam Rock, Spangles and a clip round the earhole from you friendly neighbourhood copper.

Do Anything You Wanna Do

Now that autumn is rolling in, the leaves are falling from the trees and me and Mrs Totts are engaged in our annual “Battle of the Boiler” as to when it’s appropriate to turn the heating on it seems only right that we should be entertaining a solid, meat, spuds, sticky pudding and woolly jumpers side like Stockport.

Tied Up In Notts

So, here we go again me old chinchillas.  It really is non-stop, solid gold, easy action in this opening few weeks of the season and we’ve already managed to find ourselves in a full blown injury crisis that makes the Brexit hoo-hah look like a quiet evening in with a Pickwick snide seventies Top of the Pops LP and a Radox bath.

Tennis Elbow

Before we get onto Dover let’s take a step back and consider what a great start we’ve had to this season under the guidance of Matt Gray, his top team and the revitalised and younger squad of players that he has assembled.

Double Header & Done

Aah, the old Pre Season Friendlies. The footballing equivalent of non-consequential foreplay where you get a bit hot and sweaty, go through the motions but never reach any sort of satisfactory climax.  Still, they are part of the calendar and it has fallen to me to slam them into the bin on behalf of the Gandermonium cartel before the real thing gets under way at the weekend.

Robin Friday - The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw

Many footballing superstars have graced the pitch at Sutton United down the years – far too many to mention here – but there’s one player who stepped out of the GGL tunnel as a kid back in May 1972 who really should have gone on to become a household name. A lad by the name of Robin Friday.

Snide Walnut Whip

Can we be honest with each other? We’ve knocked around together for a while and you should have got the measure of me by now and if you haven’t, I can’t really help you. Because here’s the thing – playing a team that is already relegated when you have nothing much to pitch for yourselves is basically the footballing equivalent of necrophilia.

Chezzy Balls

What’s the best invention ever?

It’s subjective isn’t it? Some would go with the wheel, others lager and many wouldn’t give a shit as long as it doesn’t involve a Brexit panel discussion involving the usual parade of know-nothing politicians and fuckwit commentators grifting a living out of something they understand less than my cat. You will get my point and if you think this missive has started off a trifle larey you wait till I get onto BT Sport and East Midlands Trains. I don’t want to loose off all my bile in one heave.

Lifestyle Choice

As you know I like to start off these exercises in football avoidance that masquerade as a “match day blog” with a little bit of personal history that I like to think gives you, the reader, a bit of a window into my world and give a feel for the life experiences that have been roughly stitched together to make me the man that I am today. Others may describe it as “blatant fucking filler”. I say suit yerselves.

Banstead Mental Hospital FC

Delving into the past on a subject that has had very little coverage on-line or in print really is a shot in the dark but starting off from a few core reference points and then plunging in and seeing where the journey takes you can be hugely satisfying. And this trip through the brief senior footballing life of Banstead Mental Hospital FC ticks that box big style.

Jolly Festive Uncle

Picture the scene.  The poor house is cold.  It stinks of damp, Dettol and overcooked sprouts.  At a rickety old table huddle a group of pale looking urchins. They are proper fucked to be honest, having spunked every last penny and more on awayday trips to the likes of Scotland, Dublin and an endless stream of Northern shit holes that no one would visit in their right mind unless they were making some sort of post-Brexit documentary on Broken Britain.

Packing Like Bindon

I’m not one to bang on about the Good Old Days as you know but I was reminded this week that it’s exactly forty years since Ian Dury released his number one smash Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and the Jam were riding high in the album charts with the seminal Old Mod Cons. That spun me right back to those days in 1978 when I was sixteen, waiting to leave school and sitting bored shitless in the office of the council education and youth officer discussing my career opportunities.

Taken up the Rico Perez - Football Abroad

Standing on Gander Green Lane at 4.30am on a late November Sunday morning in the biting cold and pissing rain you cannot but help wondering what the fuck it is that you are actually doing with your life. I’m tired, hungry, a bit hungover and waiting for Tony Bacon to bowl up from the Park Farm Estate in his nice warm motor.

Loosened Thrupennies

Aah, Chesterfield, the latest in the parade of Football League stalwarts who sink to a shocker of a season in the fourth tier and suddenly find themselves plunged bollock-naked into the choppy and icy waters of the wacky world we like to call the “National League”.