Tales From The Riverbank

Hello readers, another resonably happy blog from the banks of the Wandle.Things going well after our jounery to Westfield the other week which I think would be fair to say was anything but happy.

                                                 Tales from the Wandle Riverbank
         "Dear Mishi, You and your muggy firm will get smashed all over the place, jog on mug"

First up, The Surrey Senior Cup 2nd round El Classico against Good old Corinthain Casuals my favorite team in pink, not like that other lot of squatting bastards who've covered Fortress Imperial in stickers and dumped a great big fucking pink and blue caravan up near the far end bogs.......

Also good to play a team with a vocal away support which is something this Bostik South Central has shown very little of. The occasional bumpkin with a drum has turned up to try and drown out the Bog Ends finest and the moaning old gits who sit in the stands swearing at everything and everybody. So it was good to have a collection of old punks, drunks and lunatics turn up from along the A3 to cheers the Casuals on. I should be bitter a twisted and hate the fact they are more than holding their own in the Bostik Premiership but I'm glad for them and honestly hope we'll play each other in league games in that division soon. Whether I'd be so nice about them if we'd lost might have to be taken into consideration when reading this but we went through on penalties into the next round of the Surrey Senior Cup where I personally hope we get one of the big glamour clubs like Sutton (Cough).

Then on Saturday, another great fightback from the Terrors saw them get a draw against Bracknell Town after going two down in a other 10 or so minutes in the first half that are best forgotten.Nearly sneaked it at the end but if one thing has come from this season so far there is a lot of fight and good team sprirt this year. The occasional hic up but we'd hopefully pulled ourselves out of the start of season slump which almost broke my poor old heart and had me reaching for the tissues.

In other business news... The supporters club shop had it's grand opening that day and just like when that bloke from Harrods had a stake in Fulham and stuck a statue of Michael Jackson up outside the ground we are looking at getting a big brass statue of Bornatotter put up outside the ground in an effort to appeal to younger more hip type people than we currently get at Tooting games... Apart from me that is. Totts knows a lot about big brasses if the writing on the toilets walls of the Plough were anything to go by and although he supports Sutton I'm sure the statue will bring in hundreds of new fans to watch the Terrors battle their way through the dark, cold wet winter months.

They are opening a Lidl superstore in Hackbridge soon so I'm expecting a call from their head office asking for advice on the local area and the obivous gentifacation that going on around my manor. They might even open a Costa Coffee or Pret now which will allow myself and Mrs H to sit outside reading the guardian while drinking a coconut soya skinny latte while watching a tramp having a shit in a bin.

No game for the Terrors this coming Saturday and think it might be best if I get at least some of the Christmas Shopping done rather than watch another game while Mrs H going around Croydon on her own carrying heavy shopping bags full of festive shite.

Talking about Christmas Gifts. Jeff B has writen a book on the 1959 FA Cup game against Nottingham Forest "We Woz Robbed In '59 - Tooting and Mitcham United's epic 1958/59 season" and the build up and aftermath of the match.Price £10.00

Here's Jeff with a plug for his book taken from the "Bog End Forum"
The older members of this Forum ( ie most of you ! ) will recall that, back in 2002, I wrote and published a book " Tooting On The Move - A Farewell To Sandy Lane ". Well, I have been at it again. My new book " We Woz Robbed In '59 - Tooting and Mitcham United's epic 1958/59 season , set to a background of social events of the time " is due to go off to the printers later this week. I hope to have some copies with me for sale, at £10-00 each, at the home game v Uxbridge on Saturday 8th. December. Copies will also be available to buy by post. As the title implies the book is not just about the club's season but also about what was going on locally at the time - music, employment, politics crime, etc. About 115 pages, lots of photographs. Hopefully, a good read ! Maybe a Xmas present !


We are hoping to have some copies for sale at the home game v Uxbridge on Saturday 8th. December. I will also put up on Twitter and other Social media of how to get copies directly from Jeff

Please email Jeff  on  brooksjeff18@aol.com  for more information and purchasing details.

Well dear reader.. Another happy ending..... Peace and Love "HH" xxx

The 93rd Minute - More tales of my footballing life

Well the fun had to stop at some time didn't it. The happiness, joy and smiles that have had me walking around Hackbridge grinning like a lunatic have now left as I walk the streets of Beddington Corner avoiding the dog poo with tears in my eyes thinking back over the last few matches. Four games in the week that would test my love of the game and the power of my wallet to survive. As I write this on Sunday evening I feel liked I've been punched in the testicles by Anthony Joshua and I'm skint.

First up on Saturday 10th November came the Vikings from the frozen North, Ware FC who arrived at Fortress Imperial with a game plan of kicking our players off the park and they very nearly succeeded with what was could only be described as the right thuggish performance. Football is a contact sport but this was like watching the start of "Saving Private Ryan" as our players were hacked down at every given opportunity and watched by the match officials who seemed quite happy to watch two of our players get taken off with what looked like at the time, serious injuries. Yes of course we had not helped ourselves by having a player sent off for twatting one of theirs and letting Ware score if the 1st minute but they really were horrible.

Right at the end we were awarded a penalty which sent the very vocal Bog End into raptures as we looked to get at least a point from the game in which the Terrors had shown great team sprint after playing with ten men for most of the game. Of course we missed the bloody thing Peter Wedgeworth forcing a great save from their goalie who was the one Ware player who came out of the day with any dignity at all.... Then in the 93rd minute, again Peter Wedgeworth stepped up and sent a free kick on the edge of the box into the top corner which sent the Bog End mental. So we took a point from the game which can either be viewed as two points dropped or a point gained with an injury time goal. Anyway I left the ground with a big grin on my stunningly handsome face. Things were definitely looking better after the results at the start of the season. But dear reader, it was not to last.

Next up on Tuesday, the second round of the London Senior Cup tie and the visit of massive party poopers Harrow Borough. This a cup  many Terrors look forward to and is a competition which the club has a good record in. Those horrible sods took no notice of our feelings and stuffed us 5-2 in a quite one sided game. When ever you go out of the cup you can come out with the old footballing chestnut of "We can concentrate on the league now" or "The cup isn't important these days" but in truth we all want to win things or at least have a good cup run. I had spent most of the game sorting out the club shop so in the next few weeks hopefully we will be able to supply Tooting and Mitcham oven gloves, Bog End brand leather underpants and key rings.

I had a non league break on Thursday and headed up to Wembley for the England v USA friendly.
A number of clubs and groups in South West London had been kindly been given free tickets which had been arranged by Tooting's Labour MP , Dr Rosena Allin-Khan. Great to see loads of people at Wembley who would not normally ever get the chance to go to the stadium. (Tooting and Mitcham supporters). Good job the tickets were free if you did intend to get anything to eat or drink in the stadium or near by. I paid 8 quid for two portions of chips outside which were rank. Crisps, coffee and a Fanta in the ground didn't leave me with much change out of 20 quid. Just to think the FA want to give Scudamore a golden hand shake of 5 million. Should give him shares in the catering contract at Wembley instead of asking for cash of those hard strapped Premiership clubs.
Never really ever got into watching international football as I find it often brings out the worse in some people, but it was an enjoyable evening and I'm happy to say that I didn't see any white plastic chairs thrown in anger.

Off to the England game wearing my lucky World Cup 1966 coat.

The last game of the week was a trip down the A3 to Woking to play a league game against Westfield. They had just been promoted from the Combined Counties and were sitting happily in mid table. Nice little ground near to their neighbours Woking who play about half a mile away. Last time I wrote about Woking I mentioned the towns Modfather Paul Weller so I was a little worried that  Big Bad Paul and his funny haircut might turn up for a tear up... But he bottled it. Wanker.
I think I'm right in saying that it was their biggest crowd so far this season who witnessed a dire match from a TMUFC perspective. The Terrors going one nil up in the first couple of minutes which I missed as I was in the loo. Unluckily for me I was not in the toilet for the next 90 or so minutes as an attack of diarrhoea would have been a more fun filled way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Westfield equalising in the 74th minute and deep down the travelling Terrors knew what would happen. In the 93rd minute a corner was not cleared properly giving Westfield one last shot which went through a pack of player into the net. Can't really moan as Luke Colquhoun in the Tooting goal had kept us in the game with some great saves but losing to an injury time goal hurts never the less.
Westfield were a lovely club and kindly let me win a bottle of Jamaican Rum in their match day raffle.

 

Things could always be worse, you could be sitting in the back seat of this car getting a lift home after the Westfield game..

Well. Next up for yours truly is the visit from our friends from Corinthian Casuals in the Surrey Senior Cup, one of our local rivals who are more than holding their own in the Bostik Premiership which makes our car crash of a season last year even more hard to take. This Cup is really our only realistic hope of a trophy for this season. Fingers crossed that those posh gits take pity on us and play one of their schoolboy teams as a act of good will...... Tune into the next blog to find out if I'll be "Happy" or "Grumpy" or maybe one of the other "Seven Dwarfs"... Is there one called "Miserable Sod" or "Twatty" ?

That's my Boy.....

Sorry I've been away for a couple of weeks and I'm sure you've all missed my tales of Doom and Gloom. I've recently started a new job and as we all know adult life sometimes has to take over and make you concentrate on more important things other than going to some place in the middle of nowhere and shouting abuse at people you've never meet before for 90 minutes then going home and writing about it. Well at lot has happened in that time since I last took a sniff of Bostiks finest and sat down at the PC to write down my innermost feelings. First some good feed back from our Foodbank collection which took place when we played Ashford Town a couple of months ago
Below is an email from Wandsworth Food Banks which I received.

Dear Steve

Thank you so much for the amazing generosity of the Tooting and Mitcham United Football Club to the Wandsworth Foodbank. We are very moved by your kindness. 

The food donations weighed in at75.1kg which we estimate will provide 179 meals for local families in crisis.

We are putting the £34.70 towards our Christmas Appeal in which we are raising funds to give each foodbank guest a supermarket gift voucher in December, so that they can chose some fresh food and other essentials at Christmas time.

And finally thank you for the added bonus of the season tickets which have been discussed on numerous occasions in the office and possibly already put into use by the foodbank team.

 

We are very grateful for your support.

With best wishes

Pat

Pat Gabriel

Wandsworth Foodbank 

Cheers to everyone who helped out with this. I'll get another one arranged in the New Year

Well the squatters will shortly fuck off home and we will get Fortress Imperial all to ourselves again.The Media lovies have been all over the return of Dulwich to Champion Hill like a rash , which has lead to some right cringe worthy stuff going up online and in the press but I can't really blame them after all it seemed for a while that they could have ended up going out of business which no one wanted... Well apart from one 13 year old from Hackbridge.

Glad for all the hard working people at DHFC who have put so much time and effort to get things

sorted and to return home. I've meet some good people connected with them.

But before you accuse me of being in some kind of love in with the "Pinkies" I must remind you that Bogend Ant is the fruit of my loins and since the day they started squatting has oozed hatred at them in every way shape or form. he has been involved in all kinds of Twitter wars and arguments some of which turned out as ugly and nasty as Mishi's toe. In all honestly he has hated them since the first time he went to see Tooting and Mitcham. Hopefully the Non League family that all joined together to help and support Dulwich Hamlet in their struggle can now go back to taking the piss out of them when they return to Champion Hill.

 

 

 

Bogend Ant... In the words of Tom and Jerry characters Butch and Spike... "That's My Boy".

Next up was the little matter of TMUFC hitting a series of four away games on the trot starting with a trip to The Surrey commuter belt land of Egham for what would turn out to be quite an eventful match in many ways. Is there such a thing as a bad game of football that ends 4-3 ... ?

In truth I would have said no until witnessing this game. 3-1 down when the half time whistle blew which sent the travelling Bog End in a near hysterical mutiny. But the second half was to produce 3 Toots goals and spark a another pitch invasion for TMUFC and we snatched a win from what looked like a certain defeat 45 minutes earlier. If I'm honest despite the comeback I was still angry over the first 45 minutes to really appreciate  what the players had done and got home still feeling rather pissed of with the season so far. Thus proving that even 4 goals away from home and I'm still a miserable old bastard.
Great old school ground at Egham but Ant was disappointed in the lack of chips on sale but all in all I wish them well. A little gang of Herberts aged between 12 and 15 stood behind the goal during the second half singing songs about some of our more weighty supporters and the lack of dental hygiene in others."Where's your teeth, Where's your teeth" sang the Herberts. The travelling terrors replied with songs about "Going back to school on Monday" and were hit straight back with "You're going back to your care home" Cheeky little fuckers... Weather they'll still be cheeky in a couple of years time when dressed in Stone Island and being interviewed by Danny Dyer or Ross Kemp after going on a wrecking spree around the Bostik South Central remains to be seen. Anyway 3 points and a much needed win.

Next a trip up Norf to FC Romania who play at Cheshunts ground. Didn't make the trip but
informed by those who did get up there it was a good performance and another 4-1 away win good win. All said as well what a friendly club FC Romania was. They have struggled this season but seeing as they have only been going for a few years their story has been quiet something. Beating two clubs below us in the league at that point helped put a bit of distance between us and the two relegation places

Next up Hanwell away, another trip to a cold damp West London. I'd not been to that neck of the woods in around 40 years since heading over there to get a couple of tattoos done by an biker who was not to fussed about how old the people were he was inking. Hanwell also play in Black and White stripes and I'm reliably informed some of our travelling support were cheering on the home side in the belief that it was The Mighty Terrors. A good 2-1 win in front of a small but hardy group of Tooting's Finest and so far what I think has been TMUFC best performance of the season so far. Which gave me a chance to shout out the score to people waiting at the bust stop outside the ground who obviously were hanging around in the cold to find out if we won or not. Well impressed with the chips as well and if you get the chance read Bog End Ant's blog.

 

 

 

 

http://anthonyharrold.blogspot.com

But don't take my word for it... Here's His Royal Highness The Prince of Wandle Tim Megones match review from Hanwell

PLUM PARADE

The unbeaten run in plum continued a few weeks ago with the trip to Hanwell Town - yet another of the millions of clubs in our league that cling to the outskirts of Heathrow - in the London Cup. There are two important facts about Hanwell, the first being that they have a giant electronic scoreboard for no apparent reason and the second that they are nicknamed the Geordies. It’s easy to understand why, especially if you strode purposefully, as I did that night, along the imposing footbridge that crosses the mighty freeway known as Western Avenue, and spied from on high the Wembley Stadium Arch. If you have taken the wrong medication, and bearing in mind there was a misty drizzle that night, you could easily mistake the Arch for the Angel of the North and think that you were on the way to St James’ Park. Hanwell also play in black and white stripes, but so do we and no one has branded us ‘Geordies’, or indeed labelled Hanwell ‘Terrors’. And anyhow, that night we ditched the stripes and got our plums out for the lads (I’m not sure I spotted any women in the crowd of 53).   

Aided by Abraham Odoh’s all action endeavour and visionary passing, we took control and cruised into a 2-0 half time lead with a couple of clinical finishes from Elijah Simpson. Despite a goal from Hanwell soon after the break, we were even more dominant in the second half with Razzaq Coleman firing us 3-1 ahead and a raking long range strike from Kadeem Ajeon putting the icing on the cake. All that was left after a polished 70-minute performance was a complacent exhibition of crap showboating from our heroes, which could have landed us in severe trouble, but we staggered home 4-3. 

The Hanwell keeper had suggested to Bog End investigators that the Middlesex club were fielding a weakened team (somewhat surprisingly, as the London Senior Cup remains the world’s most prestigious piece of silverware), as to some extent, were we. I assumed this was the kind of sour grapes bollocks riposte that players and fans employ as a mid-humiliation defence mechanism. It certainly works for me. But we played our stripey Geordie chums again in the league on Saturday, again dressed as unripe plums, and it turns out the keeper was telling the unvarnished truth. He was himself one of several casualties in a bloody purge with the strengthened line-up featuring about nine other changes. 

Unperturbed by a meaner leaner looking display from our high-ish flying opponents, we eased our way into the contest and began once again to take control, though it took a crucial save from impressive new keeper Luke Colquhoun to keep us on track.

Set piece goals from Tooting used to feature as about as often as snow leopards in Basildon, but all of that seems to be changing, as we tore into the lead from a corner shortly before the break, with Peter Wedgworth’s swirling delivery finding its way through a forest of heads to Dominic Morgan Griffiths who nodded home. 

Hanwell equalized early in the second half, but with Isaiah Jones at his rampant best and tormenting and terrorizing the defence, we were not to be denied. Danny Bassett, a man on fire, deftly controlling, then thrashing the ball home from another set piece. After several weeks of darkness and despair, three away wins on the spin, have propelled us through the ozone layer and into an unlikely seventh place. It’s another away trip tomorrow, this time to League leaders Waltham Abbey. Bring it on.

So as it stood 3 wins and 9 points which has lead us to shoot up the table and for the moment put fears of a back to back relegation on hold for hopefully the rest of the season. As we proudly rose to seventh in the table we then travelled to Waltham Abbey for a Top of The Table Clash (cough), for the forth away game. Waltham Abbey sitting at the top of the league table ready to take on the pride of South London. This would be a big test..... One that I would miss due to major traffic problems at the Dartford crossing which meant a small group of Terrors ended up watching two local teams Colliers Wood v Balham play an entertaining game off the A3 Colliers Wood winning 1-0.
Please check out the link below to what I hope will be one of Ants first steps into film making and a career making multi million dollar blockbusting films allowing him to buy his Dad a fucking big house and a flash car

Bogend Ants Video Blog

Of course TMUFC won 2-0 without me there to cheer them on. Sods law. Tooting beat the top of the table club on their own patch and I miss it. But I'm still happy.... And thats how I'm going to end this blog.... Smiling, which as you know if you've read any of my other stuff is very rare indeed

 

Massive thanks to Tim Magone, Bogent Ant and Dave Irons who has taken me and Ant to so many games over the last few years.