Cups of Plenty?

As we decamped from Waltham Abbey's Capershotts ground a few Saturdays back, it was possible that we had just seen the last league action that Tooting and Mitcham would participate in for over a month. As is stood, October could have heralded fixtures in a variety of knockout competitions, but yielded no opportunities to add to our total of league points, potentially leaving us playing catch-up to those teams in and around us. How so? Well, consider how the upcoming fixture list for October looked on that last Saturday in September :

01.10.19 WHYTELEAFE (H) (Velocity Trophy, Group Stage)

05.10.19 POOLE TOWN (H) (FA Cup, 3rd Qualifying rd.)

12.10.19 WHHYTELEAFE (A) (FA Trophy, Preliminary rd.)

15.10.19 FRIMLEY GREEN (H) (Surrey Senior Cup, Preliminary rd.)

19.10.19 FC Romania (A) (league)

26.10.19 Bracknell Town (A) (league)

Six fixtures, of which only the last two were league matches. Had we progressed against Poole, the final qualifying round of the FA Cup was scheduled for the weekend of the FC Romania game, and would have superseded that fixture. Had the Whyteleafe game the following week then been won or drawn, the following round or replay would be on Saturday 26th, pushing Bracknell aside and leaving the month of October entirely devoid of league encounters. Our rivals toward the top of the fledgling south-central division, Hanwell Town, Westfield, and Chalfont St. Peter, had all made early exits from the FA Cup and so would have had the opportunity to open up a bit of a gap at the top of the division, albeit it would still be early days, and we would have games in hand. The case that i am seeking to make here is that such is the proliferation of cup competitions at our level, and the need to make a dent in them early in the season, that the potential for losing ground which we subsequently struggle to make up is rife.

To further emphasise this, ahead of the game against Whyteleafe this past weekend, I had a look at their recent form to see what we were up against. Their nine matches this season had yielded seven victories, against one draw and one defeat. At home, they had drawn on the opening day of the season, and then followed that up with two wins. On paper, they looked a good side, and i thought we'd do well to get out of there without losing. I assumed, given their form, that they would be amongst the leaders of the south-east division and was rather surprised when bringing up the table to see them in fourteenth place! On closer inspection, i realised why; only four of their matches had been league games. Like us, they had enjoyed a good run in the FA Cup and, unlike us, were still in it with a home game against National League south side Chippenham Town to come. Alongside that, they had played as many FA Cup matches as league games (four), and had an outing in the Velocity Trophy. This competition has been revamped this season as, in their wisdom (or otherwise), the Isthmian League have decided to do away with the straight knockout format and introduce a group stage. This means, with five teams per group, we have a minimum of four matches in the competition before the eight group winners (and, with all due respect to the other teams in our section, we will be confident of being one of them) go into the hat with the 24 Premier Division teams, and the competition reverts to straight knockout. The fixture congestion is palpable. It's not so much the demands on the players that concerns me, as we take the opportunity in most competitions, particularly at this early stage, to blood some youngsters and see if they're ready for the first team; more important, i think, is that the proliferation of matches leads to the postponement of league fixtures and therefore creates the potential for fixture congestion later in the season. This might be a point of concern for some, but time will tell if our squad, which is deeper than most at our level, will be able to overcome this potential stacking up of games.

With this in mind, as our early domination at Whyteleafe dissipated and the home side were coming on strong in the second half resulting in their equaliser and the calling into action of James Shaw to make a number of stops that kept us on terms, i had almost begun to accept the likelihood of their finding a winning strike on the basis that departure from the competition here would ease our schedule in the coming weeks, and a replay could compromise that immensely. The benefits of a run in the Trophy are not immediately clear. As one of teams from the lowest level that yields entry, are chances of winning the competition are thin. Unlike the FA Cup, which provides the possibility of a plum tie against football league opposition should the qualifying rounds be negotiated, the Trophy offers less prestigious ties. However ties against the likes of Sutton United or the village idiots of SE22 would excite many around the club, the chance to get one over old foes really gets the Bog Ends juices flowing.

I started writing this piece in the immediate aftermath of the Whyteleafe tie (and, of course, my supporter's urge came back to the fore as i cheered Danny Basset's second and pickpocketed third as vociferously as any of the travelling faithful) with the assumption that progress would be forthcoming in the Surrey Senior Cup on the following Tuesday; a home tie against six points from bottom of the lower tier side Frimley Green didn't seem to herald the prospect of an early departure from the competition in which we were runners-up last season, but the footballing gods had other ideas and two late goals from the underdogs overturned our first half lead and took them through. Slight embarrassment at the result (despite the nature of the side we fielded) has now been replaced by the pragmatism that comes with the realisation that this lightens our fixture list considerably.

Now that we have negotiated the first hurdle in the Trophy, our next outing in that competition sees us make the considerable journey to Sittingbourne, which replaces the Bracknell fixture on the 26th; so the month of October will eventually play out with only one opportunity for league points. Lets hope we take advantage of this and bring them back from the Romanian part of Cheshunt on Saturday.