Meet Cascadia’s hosts: Sutton United; a hard ground to enter, an easy club to like

Cascadia will open their ConIFA World Cup campaign against play the Isle of Man on May 31st at Sutton United’s Gander Green Lane in a group which also contains Barawa and Tamil Eelam.

The venue is famous for the events of January 7 1989 when Sutton beat Coventry City 2-1 in the FA Cup. That was that FA Cup rarity when a non league team beat a side from the top tier, the Premier League or its predecessor.

The visit to the venue of Cascadia’s first game was not easy. The ground is situated a handy 200 yards from West Sutton station.

Firstly British Rail staff pointed me to take a train to Clapham Junction and change there to get to West Sutton. However on arriving at Clapham Junction, I found that no trains ran to West Sutton from Clapham Junction and the station is not mentioned on any notice boards. So I had to instead get a train to Sutton Station. I decided to scope out the walk through the town.

Sutton station is a good 35 minute walk but a pleasant one from the Gander Green Lane Stadium. It was then that my troubles getting into the stadium began. A massive fence blocks off access to the stadium from the eastern approach and you have to walk a good 15 minutes away from the stadium and around to find the way in via Collingwood Park. That there is no pedestrian or car access from St James Road is not apparent on Google maps.

Thereafter, three separate stewards were asked to and refused to open gates to let me in although the game had by then begun. The second one sent me back to the first gate I had been refused at. I was then directed to the turnstiles but they were also closed. The kiosk where I had been instructed to pick up my ticket pre-game was also by then closed. Even the local police sitting outside in their van had no idea how I was supposed to get into the stadium. It appeared that if you arrive late, they won’t let you in!

I found a third gate with four stewards standing on the other side. They initially told me it didn’t open.

Only after I explained my total exasperation about being unable to enter the ground as play went on did the steward open it. But not to let me into the stadium.

The view from the main stand

Instead he closed the gate behind him and came outside and walked me into the club house where he searched in vain for a club official. By that point, I’d walked the entire circumference of the stadium, and through a housing estate and Collingwood Park. At that point the door from the club bar to the stadium was opened to let fans out for the second half, and with his permission I mingled with them.

The stadium itself is decent with covered stands on all four sides and smaller banks of uncovered terracing. The 3G pitch was paid for entirely by the manager and local legend Paul Doswell who was subsequently repaid out of the FA Cup run that ended only when Arsenal came calling.

The press box is the row at the back of the main stand. There were two empty seats but they were inaccessible unless those occupying the end seats stood up and let you through, or just slid along to make the end seat available. The local journalists refused to move and there I was standing there looking a total diddy holding a laptop while the game went on. I asked them finally what exactly they expected me to do.

Eventually, one made a seat two in from the end available but I still had to clamber by a lady who stubbornly occupied the seat at the end of the row, and would neither slide down one or even stand up to let me through. She appeared to be working for the club or the league taking stats and later explained to me that she might have missed a corner kick if she had moved and she didn’t get paid if that happened.

The wifi number is not on the media sheet and nobody knew it and I didn’t fancy my chances of scrambling back out again to find someone who did. That is something hopefully ConIFA will take control of as well as the stewarding when hundreds of fans who do not know the area will be attending. The only saving grace was that the first half was goalless. The second half soon proved itself to be the one worth seeing.

Sutton opened the scoring shortly after half time with Tommy Wright finishing neatly in the 49th minute.

Shortly after there was a penalty awarded to Aldershot for handball after which the referee Adrian Quelch paid a stern visit to the somewhat vocally miffed home dugout. The spot kick was successfully and very impressively converted by Scott Rendell for the equaliser to the delight of the traveling fans The United second was sadly due to a goalkeeping error by Lewis Ward who could only parry a long range shot. Substitute Ross Lafayette reacted first and followed up to score the winner.

Match winner Ross Lafayette receives congratulations in a non-traditional way!

Overall, Sutton were the better side in the second half and deserving of the points.

It was a good second half, with both sides looking full of confidence. Both sets of fans in the 3541 crowd gave generous vocal support, including the 1063 from Aldershot. It was also Sutton’s record home attendance for a league home game. At full time of the club’s last home game of the regular season, the fans gave the team a very generous and long-lasting applause. They will play the winner of the play off match between Borehamwood and Fylde on May 6 at home. Aldershot will face Ebbsfleet with the winners playing Tranmere. That will produce two teams for the final with a league place at stake.

Not wanting to write a negative preview of the club and the venue, I decamped to the club bar after the game. It’s a decent club bar and the patrons are very friendly. The correct amount of joy was proclaimed at the demise of local rivals Woking and the wifi was excellent. The players mingled freely with fans and seemed very approachable.

“Sutton United is a friendly, family and community club, ” central defender Dean Beckwith told me.

They have certainly captured the heart of new fans. Trevor Hatton is a Director of Public Law during the week and has been a fan for six years. He lives in the area but is originally from Essex. He told us about the fabric of the club:

“The wonderful thing about this club is that it is a community cub. It is actually owned by the community. I’m a shareholder and there are no majority shareholders. Paul Doswell when he was being interviewed for the manager’s job told the board that he would not take a salary. He’s independently wealthy and told the club to use his salary to buy players.

“I gave up being a season ticket holder at West Ham because I felt more of an emotional connection to the club. That process began as soon as I attended my first game. I was a season ticket holder at West Ham for eight years but within I’d say two years, I’d had more enjoyment out of football following Sutton than with the premier league club.”

The supporters here know the value of grass roots football and community. By the time Cascadia fans arrive here, they will know if they are visiting a league ground.

As long as they arrive early and under no circumstances go to Sutton Station, they will enjoy their time at Gander Green Lane. At least more than Coventry did on that famous day in 1989.