#1, Published September 24th, 2012
Welcome to a series of short stories about the local football team who play about a centre half's hoof up the pitch from London Heathrow Airport - Staines Town Football club. Staines is a pleasant (well I am biased) market town by the river Thames and a 30 minute train ride from London Waterloo station. More and more people these days like to spend their time and money on their local non-league team rather than the expense and obtaining tickets for our bigger cousins who play the game at a professional level.
Saturday 22nd
September:
A lovely sunny and warm day in Staines - ideal to go down the local
pub for a few pints prior to watching the FA Cup Game v Hastings (one level
below us). The "jokes" have already been done about the battle of
Hastings in 1066 as you have seen on the club's website/forum. 1066 was the
year by the way and not a French lager (nobody did that joke - my strange sense
of humour).
We were 1-0 up with our Centre forward (Tony Garrod) scoring a centre forward type of goal but needless to say 1-1 appeared just before half time. It seemed no time at all when the Visitors were leading 3-1 and then a David Wheeler header for 3-2 but that was it I am afraid - out of the FA cup before I have put a coat on for the first time this season.
OK, we are not going to win the FA cup... teams like Manchester United and Chelsea will get in the way a bit but always disappointing to lose a game, especially early rounds of this famous trophy - GBP 4500.00 to the winners on Saturday at this particular stage - not to be sniffed at. A full match report is on our website along with numerous quips about the team/game on the fans forum (message board) so I will not dwell on that - I don't think anyone is smiling at the moment.
We are now due to play Basingstoke on Tuesday (25th) since our game along with theirs did not result in a draw so no replays - Basingstoke hosted a team in a lower level of football so they were always going to win weren't they!!!!