The magic of the Cup

I love the FA Cup, my days following the "Glorious Gooner Gunners" meant I've seen many great games and finals but since giving up the sky premiership circus my love affair with this fantastic competition has however not been as exciting and fun filled. Far from it in fact.  Tooting and Mitcham have quite a good record in the FA Cup but of course I've missed all that. The cup run in 1959 and the defeat by Nottingham Forest is still sung about on the Bog End terraces despite the fact that most who stand on there weren't born then. A couple of runs in the 70's and which lead to games against Swindon and Crystal Palace and Bradford are still talked about by older Terrors as great moments in the clubs history. The game in the 1st Round in 2005 an away tie against Stockport was a well attended game by a large group of drunken South Londoners who saw the club loose 5-0. But it's not all about victorious games and celebrating winning trophies when following a club like Tooting and Mitcham, if we wanted victories and a packed trophy cabinet we'd all go and watch Crystal Palace.

 

But as my time following the Terrors only stretches back about 12 years my memories of FA Cup glory are very limited. A game in 2013 at Leatherhead which as per normal ended in defeat which sticks forever in my mind for their goalie getting his shorts pulled down by a couple of herberts with the travelling bogend when he was about to take a goal kick. The following week in a league game there we lost 5-1 and In the second half Bogend Ant got stung by a wasp which caused quite a scene and yet again made me question my decision to take the poor little sod to games.... especially ones in Leatherhead. They had also beaten us in the FA Cup the year before... and in the league which we both attended.  I've never seen TMUFC beat Leatherhead which makes them one of the 73 boogie teams the Terrors currently have at the moment. Leatherhead along with Berlin have had a wall that fell down in resent history and helped changed the course of events afterwards. Ask any Dulwich fan for an explanation if you get the chance.

Then the season after there was a very small FA Cup run that took us to "Mighty" Bishops Stortford after a last minute winner took us past Cray Wanderers. We dominated the game getting a draw before beating them at Imperial Fields. memorable for some of The Bishop supporters who turned up, called us minnows and refused to buy programmes and entre the "golden goals competition"etc. so as not to give any money what so ever to TMUFC and acted like total smug bell ends in the knowledge that they were a "bigger" club. Their manager was also a lovely smug prick of a man who got sacked shortly afterwards. Some victories are made even better when the opponents fans are class A twats. Of course we lost to East Thurrock in the next round but both the Stortford games were special. Now I'm not saying all Bishop Stortford fans are wankers, just the ones I've met and the ones I've spoken to.

Bog End Ant, Leader of the Tooty Wooty Boot Boys taking total liberties over at Bishops Stortford


Nothing else springs to mind since then apart from various other defeats the in worlds greatest cup competition.... But maybe this could be the year. A great crowd of over 300 turned up on a wet and windy Friday night to watch us beat Horley Town, A game moved to Friday due to the Pink and Blue Squatters having a "Home" league game on the Saturday which out ranked the FA Cup for some reason... But in truth the Friday night thing worked, of course the victory helped but the bigger than expected crowd and the packed bar meant that the Bank Holiday weekend started with a bang and an awful lot to drink for many. We were "Blessed" with a couple of Sutton United Supporters including the world famous musical sex machine @bornatotter who knows a lot about the magic of the FA Cup and the magic of FA Cup songs. All of us wait with baited breath to see who Sutton get when they enter the FA Cup this season, while he stares at his guitar dreaming of Pop Stardom and the chance to get on Football Focus again as the comedy time filling bit at the end. We'll I'm hopping to get either Spurs or Man United in the next round... We'll probably end up with bloody Leatherhead again... Let hope it pisses down with rain.....

Continuity and revenge - Words of wisdom from Sir Timothy Megone

CONTINUITY AND REVENGE




More words of wisdom from Sir Timothy Megone. The leader of the Tooty Wooty Boot Boys. Trade unionist and old punk rocker... So make yourself a nice cup of tea and settle down with this excellent piece of literature from this glue sniffing lefty yobbo.

Last season’s calamitous collapse and capitulation by the Once Mighty Stripes was a bitter pill to swallow and I’m not sure that many of the stricken hordes have yet recovered.
A summer time stroll to the club to sample the thrills and spills of England and Belgium playing charades stabbed home the bitter truth - with the sign of Satan proudly exhibited over the turnstiles and no similar display to mark our own increasingly flatulent presence.
There’s no question that it was the right decision to allow the Devil’s Omelettes through our gates – threatened as they were with extinction at the hands of a grasping landlord. Their demise would have deprived us of the pleasures that only searing hatred can give, though that is all fairly academic now with their elevation to loftier climes and our simultaneous plummet into the bowels of this god forsaken planet.
At the Emperor’s Pastures, we have been used to playing second, third or fourth fiddle to lacrosse, weddings and probably dogging, but to have that mob take over on the footballing priority front is surely one affront to humanity too far.
Meanwhile, we have slithered beneath just about every comparable rival club in the South London/Surrey area, with the likes of Sutton and Bromley light years away, and villages such as Merstham and Walton Casuals looking down on us from on high. Our big local derby this year will be the encounter with stockbroking farmers Chipstead (I gather all tickets are sold for the Bank Holiday Clash) while, as one embittered jester pointed out, we can look forward to other all Surrey encounters against a cartoon (South Park) and a shopping centre (Westfield).
Still as the Terrors have spent most of my footballing life demonstrating, no club is too big to be crap and we have to make the best of it in the Bostik South Central. Seeing most of last season’s squad in the bar that balmy June evening was vaguely reassuring, the players still wanting to stay with the club and hell bent on a quest to rescue our damaged pride and wreak murderous vengeance, maybe not against the likes of Staines and Billericay, but possibly society at large. They hadn’t become shit players overnight and here was the chance to prove it. All of this spiced up with spritely reinforcements from the Under 23 team, for, as Big Daddy Kane once warbled, ‘Children are the future.’ What could possibly go wrong?
Once again, I could feel the Fires from the Fields moisten my loins. No one could ever take the magic of two seasons ago away from us and we want it all back. There can be no going back, no surrender, the banners unfurled for the start of the new season … and what a fucking car crash it was, away to Northwood, a ground where corpses from the neighbouring cemetery are hastily brought in to reinforce the crowd, and balance out the large Tooting contingent. 3-1 up with twelve minutes to go, we stylishly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and it was back to the darkened room and mind-altering substances for the returning hordes. 
Surely it would all be different at the theatre of terror, as we entertained the Children of Ken Barlow, a Morris dancing troupe from Marlow. The turnout wasn’t bad but it’s hard to get a crowd going when you’ve just had your soul sucked inside out. In the end, there was almost a sense of relief at the stodgy but wholesome fare that was dumped before us, solid defending and the odd chance, a snapshot from a well fed looking Billy Dunn and a crisp header from Dominic Morgan Griffiths - both fizzing inches wide  - testament to our unrewarded superiority in a goalless thriller. At least we didn’t lose. From small acorns …

Over the parrot... Sick as the moon.

When you get to my age most of the things that you look forward to end up being crushing soul destroying events that leave you crying in a darkened rooms and spending the days afterwards writing poetry. Take Christmas and Birthdays. You look forward the big expensive presents and gifts that you really want and end up with fucking socks and pants.

When it comes to days you look forward to the start of the football season is a day like no others. Forget the World Cup and that plucky England team getting to the Semi Final and then Sky sports news spending hours on transfer deadline day telling the fans of Chelsea and Man United that their club has just forked out 70 million quid on some bloke they've never heard of from Belgium.... The first game of the Bostik South Central is the big one. The chance to avenge the ghosts of last season and bring joy and happiness to the legions of black and white Terrors. So they day we've all been looking forward to for ages finally arrives and the travelling Toots head up along the A40 to Northwood FC for the opening day fixture. The pre season had been pretty good and some interesting games took place but this is the real deal. A crowd of 146 which at least half of were Tooting settled in for the start of the 2018 - 19 season.

The last league game Tooting and Mitcham played was the epic "Must Win" game at Met Police when Tooting and Mitcham had the chance to stay up in the Bostik Premiership. A game in which we went one down after 43 seconds. Here was a chance to boost morale and get things going for the new season.

 

Then just like all those bastard Christmas and the Birthdays full of underpants and novelty coloured socks it all goes belly up. 3-1 up with 14 minutes to go in a match which we had pretty much bossed despite the fact we went 1-0 down. TMUFC ended up losing 4-3. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Even by the high standards of the complete fuck ups in the past by various Tooting teams this was a total disaster. The supporters club at the end of each season have an award for the worst game. The team will really have to go some to beat this trip to Northwood. You would like to think that the team would learn from the game and make sure that they don't let things like this happen again.... But this is Tooting and Mitcham so you can never be sure what the hell will take place on the pitch. I hate Football sometimes... most times in fact but I still go back for more in the belief that the next time TMUFC are 3-1 with 14 minutes to go that they will score a forth goal and then a fifth.... Maybe.
Tooting and Mitchams next game is a home fixture against Marlow on Saturday 18th August at Imperial Fields.... A game which now has far more riding on it in terms of supporter morale than it should do

 

                                                                                                                                            

 

 

 

 

2018 - 19 Season Review By Roger Butcher (Ramone).

Yet another guest writer. This time a big thank you to Roger Butcher (Ramone) who was for many years the only one doing any social media for the club.

This is his review on the 2018 -19 season taken from the Tooting Daily Prss web site

The new management team of Ashley Bosah and Cornelius Nwadialor. Photo by Sam Conquest



After the disappointment of relegation last year, the green shoots of optimism about the new season are beginning to emerge. Roger Butcher looks forward to the new season at Tooting & Mitcham United FC.
 
It seems, that no matter how bad things have been, most football supporters approach a brand new season with a renewed confidence, no matter how misplaced!
Over the summer, the club parted ways with manager Frank Wilson after three seasons of extremes! No mid-table mediocrity with Wilson! It seems to have been an amiable split, and certainly the supporters don’t have a bad word to say about Frank. But finishing bottom of the table normally means that the manager will be shown the door, and so it was with Tooting.
The new man at the helm is well known at Tooting & Mitcham – Ashley Bosah. He has been around the club for many years in a number of roles – predominantly working with the youth set up, and more recently he was to be seen in the dugout alongside Frank Wilson. It goes without saying that we wish him the best of luck and hope he gets off to a good start. He will be assisted by a new face at Tooting – Cornelius Nwadialor.
The new management team will be taking the team into unknown territory as we have been relegated to a newly formed division – the Isthmian South Central. It is still sponsored by Bostik, but due to the new regionalisation of the leagues, we will be playing against teams from areas that we haven’t been to for many years. The South Central Division is at Step 4 of the non-league pyramid – that same level in which we won the league just 2 seasons ago. So despite the new name and a few new opponents, this league shouldn’t hold too many fears for us.
There are generally a lot more comings and goings of players over the summer in the non-league game compared to professional teams, but so far the new management team have done well to keep the bulk of last season’s squad. Although the team finished bottom, I still think that having a continuity of players is beneficial to making a good start to the season. There still seems to be a good spirit amongst the players despite the trials and tribulations of last season. Our biggest loss may be Chace O’Neill who has joined a club in the Bostik Premier division after 3 seasons with us in which he had some magnificent performances.
Also departing is Mike Dixon whose goals in the 2nd half of the championship season propelled us over the line in the title race with Dorking Wanderers. Injuries blighted his campaign last season, but he is another one who will be playing in the Bostik Premier next season.
As for new players, it’s difficult to say this early in the season.  Clubs at our level very rarely have players on contracts, and so players are free to move clubs right up until the first game of the season. We have had 5 friendly matches so far which has featured quite a few players. Some from last season’s team, some from the youth team and some new faces from other teams. How the final squad will shape up is not clear yet, as the new manager still has a couple of weeks to weigh up his options.
The results in the pre-season friendly games are really inconsequential but Elijah Simpson may have staked an early claim for a 1st team spot with 4 goals in our 6-1 win over Redhill.  Other results so far include a 2-1 win over Whyteleafe, a 1-1 draw away at Staines and a couple of defeats at the hands of Merstham and Greenwich Borough.
As for the new season, it is difficult to work out who will be the teams to look out for as due to the reorganisation of the leagues, there are quite a few teams who were in different leagues last season, such as the Southern League. I suppose Hayes & Yeading will be a force, as they were playing in the Conference as recently as 2012. At the other end of the scale is Westfield, who play near Guildford, and who are playing their first season at this level having won the Combined Counties League last season with an impressive 106 points.
Tooting embark on the new campaign away to Northwood on 11th August and have their first home game against Marlow on 18th August. If you can’t wait till then to get your football fix, there is one remaining friendly against Horsham on 4th August. Why not come down and enjoy a bit of late summer football?
And don’t forget that the FA Cup begins for clubs at our level in August. We start in the preliminary round and will have a home tie against Redhill or Horley, depending on who wins their tie a week previously.
Upcoming Home Fixtures (all at 3pm):
•Horsham (Pre Season Friendly) – Sat 4th August
•Marlow – Sat 18th August
•Redhill or Horley Town (FA Cup) – Sat 25th August
•Chipstead – Bank Holiday Monday 28th August

 Come along – the 280 bus stops right outside!

Sir Tim Magone

Another Guest Writer. This time Sir Timothy Megone. King of The Bog End.

It's fair too say that Tim is one of the "Characters" over at Tooting and Mitcham. When I say "Characters", I mean nutcase.

I don’t go along with the Fifth Columnists and the Shabby Naysayers who attributed England’s World Cup progress to a horny cocktail of good fortune and sub-standard opposition. Or the general idea that we are light years away from the glittering citadels that bestride international football.
England have fucked it up in the past against supposed village level opposition and there was no prospect of that on this occasion (or at least there shouldn’t have been against Tunisia if the officials had turned up in the first half). Sweden and Colombia were genuinely dangerous opponents that we sent packing (albeit after a decidedly wobbly finish against the latter) and we weren’t far off toppling Croatia, who could easily have won the whole thing.
If you take away the Big Potatoes of the tournament – France, Belgium, Croatia and Brazil – you’re left with a chasing pack of spritely whippersnappers and plucky fuckers (Mexico, Switzerland) and stumbling giants (Germany and Argentina) without a lot to choose between them, and England somewhere near the front of the perky pretender brigade.
I remain firmly convinced that if Mikhail Antonio (injured and out of favour, but immortalized by his Tooting and Mitcham past and morally still black and white all the way) had been on board in Russia, things would have been different and the 52 year drout ended once and for all.
England could also do with a hefty improvement in the musical accompaniment department, starting by ditching the forelock tugging dirge that masquerades as a national anthem. That’s the song they play before Northern Ireland matches where our Lord and Saviour is requested to rescue an elderly German woman from who knows what – the perils of silly hats at Ascot?  Perhaps we could have a song about England instead?
Steel Eye Span’s (or is it Spam, as in fritter) ‘All Around My Hat’ appears to fit the bill. Blown away by the orgasmic musical swirl, I never really listened to the lyrics, but educated guesswork and wishful thinking tell me that it deals with Morris dancing and pagan rituals in the Forest of Dean, garnished with assorted Village Idiot rites of passage (cheese rolling, shin-kicking and stinging nettle eating competitions, with Countryfile’s John Craven gazing lovingly from afar). Does it for me.

England’s lusty surge to the World Cup semi-final and the beer-soaked frenzy that went with it brought back memories of 1990, when people who normally couldn’t give a shit about football steamed in on the act, casting off their shackles and running amok through fields, forests, bus shelters and discos across the realm – while those of us who’d suffered the Three Lions’ constipated flounderings for years wondered what the fuck was going on.
My daughter is one of the new breed of steely eyed zealots, which is puzzling when you consider her footballing past with Tooting and Mitcham: - she strolled onto the scene over a decade ago to the riotous splendour of Richard Cadette’s fantastic but fragile and ultimately failed promotion chasing team. It featured the rampaging heroics of ‘Super Johnny’ Hastings (with his six-goal haul against Kentish tunnel fuckers Ashford Town), which put Harry Kane’s recent exploits in the shade.
All of which failed to impress her and she turned her back on the One True Cause after a couple of years’ failed indoctrination from the Bog End priesthood. But if the devil-may-care antics of Jordan Pickford and Harry Maguire are enough to entice her back to Tooting’s shrivelling fan base, then that will do me fine.

I’m still struggling to cope with the passing of another World Cup. Despite missing more bits than I would have wanted (Serbia v Switzerland for starters), I probably enjoyed this one more than any that I can remember.
As a defender of righteousness and justice across the globe, my default position has always been to stand by the arbiters of law and order, so it will come as no surprise that I found the general standard of refereeing pretty handy, especially compared with the crap that we put up with in the 1990’s.
Perversely, amongst the low lights was the introduction of VAR, with frequently questionable reviews, followed by massive delays and sealed with often shitty decisions, Iran’s dodgy penalty against Portugal being a case in point, but one that ultimately didn’t change anything. The one that stole the show – because it affected the course of the game and quite possibly the outcome - was the ludicrous penalty awarded to France in the final against Croatia. 
Rio Ferdinand defended the new system by bleating something about it making the game more entertaining. Possibly, but you could achieve roughly the same effect by bringing on a bunch of fire quaffing jugglers or inviting Sepp Blatter and the Pope to duel naked in a giant vat of custard for 90 minutes. Whether you’d get footballing justice is another matter. 
I think the real problem may not be the technology itself but the longstanding obsession amongst officialdom with pointing to the spot every time the ball flies within farting distance of a fingernail anywhere in the vicinity of the penalty area.
I’m looking forward next season to seeing the non-league version of this, especially at the fourth tier where Tooting and Mitcham will be scrapping for glory with a variety of pig farms, several of them Middlesex, Surrey and Berks and Bucks outposts - set for deserved destruction if the Heathrow empire megalomaniacs have their way.
The technology won’t have been invented yet, so slow motion replays will presumably be enacted by amateur thespians from a local drama group pissing about with a beach ball in the club bar. A panel of experts, ideally myself, will mete out justice and retribution and the flame of truth and freedom will burn brightly and destroy all in its path.




Cheers Tim.....


I nicked all of this of his Facebook page with his permission I may add....

News from the Supporters Club

News from the Supporters Club:


I've now one of the committee members of the Tooting and Mitcham United Supporters Club(T&MUFSC) . So along with Charlie T, Dave Irons and Peter W we are all going to get the Supporters club a bit of a boost. We are aiming to do a big recruitment drive ready for next season, hoping to raise funds for various projects and to also raise the profile of the club / team through social media etc.
We now even have a Twitter account so please follow @tamufsc
The account is being run by Peter Woodhouse so expect it to be far more professional than any of the rubbish I regularly put out


Also we are aiming to get new badges etc. done and possibly other T&MUFSC branded items , pens, mouse pads, gimp masks etc.

We've also had a couple of successful get together's and there are quite a few now willing to help spread the word about the "Sleeping Giants of South London Football" If you can help in any way shape or form, please get in contact and help spread the word. The next one will be held on Tuesday 17th July at 7:30pm when the 1st team are playing Merstham on the back 3G pitch. I'll have membership forms and other odds and sods to give out


I've also now spoke to the wonderful Tim Megone and asked him to be a guest writer on here. He man is a legend over at Tooting and Mitcham and is one of our more vocal supporters. He is of course totally mental and his view of the world in general needs to be shared with a far wider audience.

The only down side to this is that technology and Timmy are still miles apart so I will have to  keep hassling him for stuff.... But I promise it will be worth it.




Just like the Freemasons, obliviously I can't tell you all the secret rituals and initiation ceremonies that I had to go through to become a committee member expect to say  I was told by Dave Irons to stand outside the main gates facing the A217 with my trousers and underpants around my knees with my genitalia on full display while sticking my tongue out for 5 minutes.
When I asked if this was part of the initiation Dave said no... He just didn't like the bloke working in the garage opposite.

A Sign of Madness

I do wonder if there is something badly wrong with me. The Pre Season friendly fixtures have just been announced and I'm already looking forward to next season and standing behind the goal hoping and praying that this again could be "The Season" and if we can ever come close to the fantastic 2016-17 season in which Frank Wilson's Terrors hit the heights of the Rymans South defeating all that came before them. Or will be like the end of the 2011-12 season when Concord Rangers and Wealdstone put 6 past us in our last few home fixtures and on the last home game we lost to Bury Town 7-1 in our that infamous relegation year. I remember walking away from the ground wondering if I could be accused of child cruelty by allowing Bogend Ant to go though this, but he's made of strong stuff and despite many tears still turns up now with his dreams still alive. In the relatively short period in footballing terms since I first turned up to see Toots I've seen them relegated twice, win two cup finals, lose one final and become champions... So despite all the doom and gloom one thing you can say about following Tooting and Mitcham is that it is very rarely boring.

In truth football is often misery and sorrow. Every now and again a victory over a local rival or a cup run can lift your sprits. But that's not the reason most of us turn up week in and out. The sense of belonging and meeting up with friends is why we come to games.... Or to get pissed and avoid going to the Asda on a Saturday afternoon.
Many of us have our "Lucky" routines or "Lucky" clothing. The reason TMUFC got relegated last season was not due to being really crap, being really unlucky or the will of the footballing Gods but solely due to my choice of underwear for the final game against Met Police.
Visit any Non League ground and you will see people who's choice of lucky socks and pants seems to be a season long decision. On the way to Harrow Borough last year we past a gentleman waking down the road who looked like one of the reconstruction models from an episode of "Finding Bigfoot" although a mile or so away from the ground we all knew where he was heading.... Of to see Harrow Borough in his "Lucky" socks and pants. Which I had no doubt he had been wearing since the 1986-87 season.

Way back in October 2014 Toots played  Merstham in the League Cup at the KNK. Not exactly the most glamorous of fixtures but one that sticks in my mind due to a chat I had with a bloke outside the ground about Tooting and Mitcham. He told me he used to be a regular at Sandy Lane and had followed the club for many years before moving out into the sticks. The game was his first visit to the KNK and he had not seen a Tooting for around 25 years and he was really looking forward to the match and seeing the new stadium for the first time. He looked and sounded really happy to be there talking to fellow Terrors and looking forward to kick off.Tooting lost 0-5 and were shite... I mean really shite even by their standards. I often wonder if he ever came back or ever regreted his choice of socks or underpants for that evenings "entertainment".

Also another moment was when Tooting Sex Icon Dave Irons spotted someone going into the ground at one fixture and said "Every time that bloke turns up we loose" I mentioned that he
could say that about every single one of us but he was not convinced. Dave has spent many years following both Tooting and Mitcham and Tottenham so over time has become an expert on broken dreams, misery, heartache, lucky pants and weird superstitions about random blokes turning up to games causing yet another defeat. Tottenham last won the league in May 1961 when I was only three months old and wearing a nappy.. I'm now heading into my twilight years and it can only be a matter of time before I'm back wearing nappies. Will Tottenham ever win the league when I'm still in control of all my bodily functions. Only time will tell.
Well I'll be heading over to Marks and Spencer's in Sutton shortly to get my lucky lingerie for the forth coming season. Maybe head over to Ann Summers to get myself a new studded leather thong... Nothing to do with football I just fancy getting a new one.