As I Tweeted after the game, this game annoyed me. Immensely. For several reasons. I wrote my original match report on the Sunday and it was, essentially, a hatchet job on the Chertsey fans. I thought better of publishing the match report and thought I’d give it a few days before having another go in a more balanced frame of mind. So I did a write up of only game action but that was pretty dull. Finally, I tried to do a mixture of the two and it was a furious ramble about the state of the modern game, which was a bit out of place and OTT. Also, in the mean time I read several reports of the game and all of them seemed slightly at odds with my impressions of it. According to both teams’ websites this was an exciting game so why was my impression so different?

It has to be said, it felt odd going to a game with my other half for the first time. This wasn’t one of the things that annoyed me but it definitely coloured my experience. Gone were the football comments, the game talk, I couldn’t quite ascertain how many of the situational and cultural reference points were or would be wasted. So I didn’t bother. This game was unlikely to hit the heights and the chances of it doing so were undermined with the other half’s Facebook update just before kick off that questioned why she was here at all. It was a joke but also a fair point, although also quite obvious as she is from Whitley Bay.

Secondly, the game really WAS pretty dire and this was the main problem. Neutrality at big, tight and tense games means that you don’t have the emotion and adrenal that both sets of fans do. Chertsey had the shoulder-chip inducing lack of history in the Vase to make this their ‘Cup Final’, as the bunting and balloons would hint. Whitley fans had the emotion of being cup holders to keep them goin. We had nothing. This neutrality often makes you view the game with cold eyes and a critical insight that means your view of the game is entirely different to the ‘fans’.

There was also the added problem of having no reference point to the previous week/month/season’s performances of either side. Was this better or worse fayre than usual? At a guess, it looked like Chertsey were playing at about par and Whitley had a little more. That might be unfair but the respective write ups do hint at that.

Though the general quality on show here was poorer than recent games we’d seen, the players undoubtedly weren’t helped by the undulating and sticky pitch. Control was often heavy, passes inaccurate and shooting wayward, particularly the latter by the home side.

The first half was only notable for the early goals and my noting that Whitley’s no.4, Hodgson, looked like he would get sent off at some point. My theory was fairly flimsy but he had managed a few minor yet cynical fouls that he’d followed up with a cheeky smirk or wink at the linesman, as if playing some odd game of cat and mouse with authority. I am pretty sure the lino clocked this and I do wonder if he mentioned it to the ref at half time? What followed might suggest he did.

The Whitley fans were amusing, they indulged in some soft-southerner baiting, bigged themselves up like any good fans should and sung of nights out, ladies parts etc etc. In short, they were nice and balanced, as you’d hope, and their banter was on the humourous side.

Chertsey on the other hand ploughed a defensive, insecure and aggressive furrow all the way through. They had a ‘no one likes us’ song like Millwall, although why anyone isn’t supposed to like them wasn’t apparent until after they’d been singing about this and flat caps for 20 minutes. They came out with so many northern (and some not even remotely northern, or accurate) stereotypes we lost count – flat cap, ‘we pay your benefits’, ‘dirty northern bastards’, something about the council not knowing they were down here or something … and many, many more, repeatedly. Banter is all part of football and the blowing of trumpets in the Whitley keeper’s ear when he was taking goal kicks was highly amusing. But, after 20 minutes or so of the same crass, inaccurate and tedious stereotypes being trotted out, it was not banter, it was constant and aggressive badgering.

The lack of warming ale might have been a factor and my decision to drive, thinking it would be both quicker and a nice drive in our now repaired English sports car, was just folly. I was wrong on all points. The beer, the fayre, the temperature, the lack of football’s cognescenti, they all accentuated the fan-watching aspect of the afternoon.

Could someone please tell me why Chertsey fans have such a chip on their shoulder? Do they have a beef with Whitley that wasn’t obvious? Was it just that due to a Sunday game, Chelsea Village were missing their idiots?

The second half of the game itself was equally as close as the first, in general. Early on came the decisive moment. Hodgson, got entangled and arms flailed. He found himself having his name taken. He didn’t appear to have done anything but, possibly thanks to his previous, he was deemed the guilty party. This may or may not have been the case but a few minutes later his little first-half smiles and winks seemed to come back to haunt him again when, after apparently being bundled over for a clear penalty, the ref told him to get up, reached for his pocket, booked him again and told him to leave the field. Harsh

I hate to say I told you so but I told you so. It was distinctly unfair on Whitley but if you dance with the devil etc etc. For the remainder of the half it was still pretty even but honours should go to Whitley for managing about a half hour with a disadvantage and not really being troubled.

There were a few good saves by both keepers in the dying embers of normal time and again towards the death of extra time but for large periods of the first half of extra time Whitley were the better side. For the neutral, however, there were large chunks of this game where nothing happened.

So, what’s the conclusion then? I reckon I just saw the wrong game at the wrong time with the wrong accomplice. Not enough footy chat, not enough entertainment, slightly tedious crowd and the game affected by a poor reffing decision. And maybe all of this just made me a bit unreasonable and abit tetchy.

Full Time: Chertsey Town 1 Whitley Bay 1 TheRealFACupVase 0

Off to QPR v Ipswich tonight to either achieve the partisan feeling so lacking on Saturday or to try to be as objective again and see how rubbish the fayre actually is when watching my own team. Either way, sorry to Chertsey, although I suspect they’re brag of having super loyal fans will be sorely tested at Hollheads on Saturday for the replay. Attendance here: 617.

If the rumours are anywhere near true then a team struggling to avoid relegation into League 1 and with a £40million pile of debt are about to roll a very big dice by spending £3million on an erratic solution to their goalscoring problem. I really do despair.*

With the Real FA Cup now OVER, we must keep ourselves occupied with money, sorry, football. Fraudian slip there. But not in the last sentence. The Real FA Vase is born! Yay for the Real FA Vase! For this week, anyway.

So, where are we going and why. Chertsey and because they’re playing last year’s winners, Whitley Bay, who we missed seeing over Christmas thanks to the rubbish lack of heat and presence of hard floors.

OK, there’s a leap from Ipswich Town, the aforementioned money throwers, to Whitley Bay but there is tenuous relevance why I mentioned them at the head of this piece. Personally, the other half is from Whitley, hence the Christmas visit, and, secondly, Whitley’s finest recent FA Cup moment was a victory over Preston North End in the 3rd round in 1990. This weekend, Preston beat the aforementioned big spenders, Ipswich Town, of whom I have the misfortune to consider myself a ‘fan’. The circle of life is complete. More pertinently, that infernal bunch of overpaid, undertalented blue wearing annoyances are the main reason this website exists. Gah.

The truth is, the last time we went to Chertsey, the game was gash, they were gash and they lost to the rozzers and Simon entertained with some pig punnery. I say ‘we’ but ‘I’ missed that game so ‘I’ int bin. Innit. Chertsey of the Combined Counties have managed the QFs of the Vase twice.

Being the Southerner, I guess I should root for Chertsey but, hey, give me the choice and I’ll be like an England captain in a sweet shop. Whitley are at the same level of the pyramid but two time winners and current holders of the Vase. Quick question but why isn’t the trophy for the FA Vase, a vase?

So, this is going to be novel. Off out on the lash to a game of footy with the lady! First time ever! First time in the 11 years I’ve known her. It’s not that she doesn’t like footy, she does, I think. Although she is offended by the rewards thicko players get in relation to the ‘arts’ and is not a big fan of elements of some club’s support, she did once have a Reading season ticket, of all things. I am half expecting her to bottle it though. *waves* [she won't read this anyway]

Whitley are stumbling after the Christmas whiteout, the previous round being their only win in four games since the freeze. Chertsey on the other hand have only played 2 games in 6 weeks and they won both of them. John Pomroy has 7 goals in the Vase but will he add to them this weekend? Glancing out the window, this week seems to be getting frosty again so we’ll have to keep an eye out for cancellations.

Both of these teams are in the odd position of having good seasons, in the top 3 of their league but miles behind the leaders. Any interesting gossip on either team, Tweet us, add comments below or email us! Cheers.

Damon.

*I no longer despair, this turns out to be only rumour. Thank god. I’m not changing it though, unless some other teams spends a desperate amount of money …

This catch up is for teams we watched in the Preliminary Round.  Chertsey, the Met Police, Sevenoaks and our local boys Dulwich Hamlet. Hamlet and the Fuzz were victorious in these games but neither went much further, both losing narrowly away to meagre opposition and neither getting far in the FA Trophy. Chertsey, on the other hand are in with a very good chance of getting a long way in the FA Vase.

Despite Chertsey’s good run and the fact we’re feeling dead Christmassy now, part two of our half term report continues with shuddering recollections of the stultifying tedium of the first ever Friday night game at Alwyns Lane. Sampled by just one regular realfacupster, Chertsey .v. The Rozzers of the Met bore all the hallmarks of classic lower league fayre. The game time changed, not on police advice but with police acceptance.  You couldn’t go much further up the pyramid and still find a game moved because one of the players was getting married on the Saturday, that stuff waits until the end of the season.  The game was, however, dire.

Chertsey though are full of Christmas cheer too now. Into the 4th round of the FA Vase, 3rd in the Combined Counties Premier League where the Curfews have lost just once at home and are on a run of 8 wins in 11. The Met, meanwhile, find themselves a bit more cheerless. They usually find themselves at the higher end of mid table in Ryman 1 South but this season they find themselves in the lower half having won just 2 of their last 10 games. One of their main problems of late has been scoring.  The talismanic Frankie Sawyer is still top scorer having rattled in 5 league goals from just 7 starts and 3 late surges from the bench during the early season.  However, Frankie left the club some months ago and they’ve struggled to score since.

The Met’s loss has been Dulwich Hamlet’s gain, although in terms of goals only very recently.  Sawyer left the Met to head up Champion Hill, where he has taken time to settle but has now got his first goals. Like the fuzz, Hamlet have a tendency to be at the business end of Ryman 1 South’s mid-table-ness but find themselves a little off the pace after an up and down first half to the season.

A few points above the Met, Gavin Rose’s new young team had a run of five successive draws in October that showed they were becoming difficult to beat but their 3 wins and 3 defeats since then suggest they haven’t quite got the hang of both preventing goals and scoring themselves in the same game. However, the high point so far is that two of those three wins have been in the last two weeks and Sawyer has started scoring.

The low point came in early November in the London Senior Cup when, at home to South Kilburn of the Hellenic League some 4 levels lower down the pyramid, Hamlet contrived to lose 2-1 in a game some at the club were calling their worst result ever.   Since though they have now finally won at home, which they hadn’t yet done this season and Rose is now talking of a promotion push. It’s a long shot because they are probably going to have to win 18 of their remaining 22 games to stand a chance.

Finally, we visited Sevenoaks’ quirky ground on the first chilly night of the year. We say chilly but the kind of chilly that requires a hoody, not the kind of chilly that currently grips the nation in it’s icy fist.  Sevenoaks lie 3^rd in the Bulmers Cider Kent League Premier Division but way off runaway leaders Faversham.  With the league position and Billy Shinners rattling in the goals at a heavy rate, it’s surprising that a town the size of Sevenoaks is attracting an average of just 64 paying fans per league game. That’s probably about a third of Hamlet’s who have far more competition for fans’ hard earned.

If you’re a fan of any of these teams and we’ve missed some notable yarns from the seasons, stick them in the commenst below or mail us. Next time, the first qualifying round.

Alwyns Lane, the home of Chertsey Town, has never seen a competitive match played on a Friday night before tonight – and they may wish that they had stuck to the traditional Saturday kick off after they were dumped out of the FA Cup by the Metropolitan Police.

According to one of the Police supporters, one of the Chertsey players is tying the knot tomorrow and has invited most of the team to the wedding so the club requested that the game be rescheduled for the Friday night. Despite the fact that this might be seen as an advantage to the Police team (due to their expected involvement in the Notting Hill Carnival this weekend), one of their fans told me that he thought they’d “been stitched up” in a situation reminiscent of a scene from The Bill.

Remarkably, the cost of a South West Trains ticket from Vauxhall to Chertsey was almost twice as much as I was charged to get in to the ground to see the game! I arrived in Chertsey with just enough time to avail myself of a fish and chip supper from the local chippie. The fish was outstanding but the chips left a lot to be desired. The ground, buried slightly out of the town centre of a very quiet Surrey town looks old, much of it in a poor state of repair. However, the bar was nice, despite the lack of an inside toilet! They also have a very passable main stand, from which I watched the first half.

A very turgid 45 minutes passed with little incident of note bar a yellow card for a lunging challenge on a Curfew player early on and some tedious midfield scrapping until the half was lit up by a superb run and shot from Andy Crossley in the Chertsey midfield. Collecting the ball just inside the Met’s half, he cut inside and dribbled the ball past 2 Policemen (probably) before shooting from the edge of the area and was extremely unlucky to see his shot rebound off the base of the keeper’s left post.

The 2nd half was little different from the first – precious few opportunities came the way of either team, despite some early sustained possession for Chertsey against their rivals from the division above. Just when they seemed to be building up some pressure on the Met defence though, the Police managed to create their first meaningful chance of the game. The ball came in from the right hand side and, after a goalmouth scramble, striker Frankie Sawyer lashed the ball into the net from 6 yards to the delight of the sparse collection of coppers and ex-coppers (I assume – surely no-one supports the Police except other Police?!) around me, one of which it turned out, was his Dad (Superintendant Sawyer maybe?). Later on, another of the Police fans told Sawyers’ father that it was “a great finish” which was over-egging the pudding somewhat, I felt.

The game meandered to a close in the end with Chertsey creating barely any chances to force a replay and the Police ran out 1-0 winners and will travel to Tonbridge to play the Angels in the next round. I’m sure there’s yet another Police joke in there about Angels but its late and I can’t, for the life of me, think of what it could be.

Simon