Norman Milne - Cult Hero

News that Sutton’s latest fixture at Wrexham has been postponed due to Coronavirus issues at the Welsh club is yet another sad reminder of the effect COVID-19 is having. Football may be considered trivial in comparison to lives being lost but for those passionate about the game, being denied our regular fix of seeing our team is a tough cross to bear.

We'll Meet Again...

Well, that didn't quite go as planned. This was meant to be one last bit of filler to effectively sign us off for what's looking more & more like a complete bust of a season, for us fans at least, after the National League decided they were going to start the season anyway and went cap in hand to the government for a hand out to pay for it all. But even then, the mob in blazers up in Brum had other ideas and put the kybosh on what we had planned as well. 

180 Days Later

Hello? Hello, is there anybody out there? Can anyone hear us? Is this thing even on? Ah screw it, like anyone reads this old pony anyway.

Yes, hello dear reader. Long time no see\read\whatever! How's tricks? Welcome back to your favourite bang average non-league bit of the internet! It has now almost been exactly six months since Covid-19 poked it's virusy oar in and royally fucked the puppy. Ending all life as we knew it and a fair bit else into the bargain as well. No going in to work, no football, no pubs. No going anywhere in fact. Just not doing anything at all. Only what seemed like one endless string of fucking Zoom calls with Joe Wicks punctuated with watching pretty much the entire contents of Netflix and just staring blankly out the window as the world metaphorically stopped turning. 

Hearty in Hartlepool

One of the great things about football away trips is that they take you to places you'd probably otherwise never visit. Often you discover that a distant town you'd idly dismissed as dull/grim/rougher than Mitcham is actually rather interesting, sometimes even welcoming. They do say that travel broadens the mind. One northern town I unexpectedly warmed to was Hartlepool.

Roving Around Wrexham

Wrexham has always seemed a bit of an anomaly. The town is indisputably Welsh but is geographically much closer to the great English conurbations of Merseyside and Manchester than it is to Wales's big population centres of Cardiff, Swansea and (if you must) Newport. If this has given Wrexhamites something of an identity problem, those who follow the football club have forged it into a fierce rivalry with Chester, less than twenty miles away but, crucially, just across the border in England.

2019/20 Season Review - Part 3

So, in PART 1 we had an OK start, followed by a slow dive into the bottom four, followed in PART 2 by a pre-Christmas surge in results largely setting us on the way to safety. So, how will the season pan out in this, our final instalment of the 2019/2020 season? Uh, rather strangely and not quite how any of us would have imagined as it turns out.....

2019/20 Season Review - Part 2

So, with the U's not so much flying as falling at the end of Part 1, we find ourselves in the bottom four coming into another busy period of the season. So, as we kick off Part Two of our season review, the big questions remain. Can we turn it around? Can we really get any worse? What the hell are we doing with our lives? Yeah, like we're gonna tell you the answers here. You don't get off that easily chum! There'll be no spoilers from us, where's the fun in that eh?

Canal Knowledge

As the National League season is now at an official end it’s now a question of wait and see as to when the U’s will take the field again. It’s still not clear how promotion and relegation issues will pan out but it’s not something that will unduly concern Sutton fans. Matt Gray had done a stellar job guiding the lads into a comfortable mid table position where only a supreme optimist could see us threaten the play off positions or a supreme pessimist could see us plunge into a relegation spot.

2019/20 Season Review - Part 1

Now, I think it's fair to say that we've been doing this Sutton United thing for a good while now. In fact, it's been more than 35 years in my own case and yes, I am well aware I should probably grow up and get a life, thanks. But in that time, we've seen a few things. Many highs, a fair few lows, great victories, some crushing defeats and been to a fair few places we'd really rather forget for various reasons. However, despite all this, we're not sure we've ever come across or experienced a season quite as odd as 2019/2020 was. 

Anyhow, we should probably start at the beginning. So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....at the beginning. Like I said I would....

Hankering for Halifax

What's the best away trip in the National League? We each have our favourites, chosen through personal criteria. For me, some interesting local history, a ground within easy reach of the railway station and (most importantly) a good choice of real ale pubs are the key factors. The three 'Ha's (Hartlepool, Harrogate and Halifax) are all high on my list. Of those, Halifax might just have shouldered its way into pole position.  What follows may help to explain why.