RAISING A GLASS ON THE TERRACE

To be printed in the National League South programme v Chippenham Town Saturday 28th August 2021 

That moment captured by our official photography Philip Benton

Tom Derry smashed the ball into the net for his first competitive goal for the Rebels. Boom! Arms, beer and probably a bit too much saliva went flying everywhere. A photo of pure joy that captured the day we had been waiting so long for. 

You couldn’t put a price on that moment.

My pre-pre-pre-match build up had started maybe a little too early the night before, well the afternoon before in the Slough Town pub of choice the Wheatsheaf. Mind you the way things are going it will be the only pub in the village with the Rising Sun and the award winning Rose and Crown shut since my last trip home. How is it possible to just close a pub down? I hope the Rose and Crown, the oldest pub on the High Street and a listed building is just being refurbed. I know people will point to the forever changing demo-graph of the town, but have you been to The Three Tuns? It used to be one of those tumble weed pubs - now its rammed to the rafters with Asians having a drink with a bar menu to drool over. That’s why I ask Slough fans who can afford it, support your local before Wetherspoon is the only boozer in town.

Saturday morning and the big day. Breakfast at my mums, a bus, some Indian food with a family laughing at the steam coming out of my ears ‘You should have had yoghurt with that.’ I also shouldn’t have drunk for 8 hours yesterday but you live and learn. Then back just in time for the Wheatsheaf to open their doors at midday with a cup of tea. I might have peaked too early. As the place filled up with Slough fans it was off on in a taxi with the driver having a traditional moan about traffic. Despite the dual carriageways that intersect Slough it’s still bumper to bumper. Maybe, just maybe there’s too many cars.

Then finally, into the theatre of dreams with DJ Aidan and Phil the Flags mixing it up on the turnstiles with their traditional warm welcome! More beer, catching up with absent friends and then a minute silence for those Rebels who have sadly passed away in the last 17 months

The National League South is even stronger this season, COVID not seeming to dampen the enthusiasm for clubs to splash the cash but still managing to get 3 games in the northern section called off.

As it was I was disappointed with the crowd and the Chelmsford away support but not with the noise. Who would have thought that pitch side drinking would have such health benefits; loosening the vocal chords while stopping COVID congestion at the bar and lowering half time stress levels.

Fast forward a week and I’m back in Brighton in our local community pub The Bevy - closed for five years before we reopened it - for the relaunch of Friday Friends seniors. For some this is the first time they have been out socially since the first lockdown. 

So the campaign starts here to get more clubs in pubs. Food, beer, bingo and endless cups of tea. A win-win for the community and your business. Beats sitting at home. 

Beats your pub being quiet. And more fun than having it in some dusty church hall. But while pubs need to continually reinvent themselves, they also need much greater protection along with other community spaces so property vultures can't buy them up, run them down, then declare they are unviable. Let's see how many become unviable if any profit made from selling a community space has to go back into that community.

We need to stop measuring everything in pounds, shillings and pence. What about the social value of a business? Shouldn’t that count for something? So let’s measure business rates on social good. The more a pub does for its community, the more discount they get. This will encourage all pubs to use their spaces to make good things happen. 

So how about running a lunch club for older people. People with learning disabilities are often desperate to work but are never given a chance, so why not team up with a local college and see if they can gain valuable work experience in the kitchen or behind the bar. Look at the quiet times and see how you can fill them by holding community events and offering rooms for people to meet for free. Anything is possible from garden competitions, art and knitting groups, dementia cafes etc. Display the local schools artwork and run cooking lessons when the kitchen is closed. The more diverse the events, the more diverse the people coming through the doors. There's plenty of community pubs to go and have a look at and nick their best ideas - and drag those councillors and their officers with you. 

Not so long ago Slough Town Football Club was 'unviable'. A homeless financial basket case with one local councillor helpfully suggesting we merge with Windsor. So should the Rebels have been consigned to the history books?

Or maybe: change the management, players and run it a bit better. Start winning games, more people come and watch and hey presto, look they are viable again. 

Just like a successful football club is much more than just 90 minutes on the pitch, a successful pub has to be about much more than just sinking a few pints, not that there's anything wrong with that. 

So isn't it about time Slough had a community owned pub? Or at least a micropub?

Yes we need houses but not at the expense of places where people can meet. Change the bloody record and change the model if its not working, not reach for the close-it-down nuclear option. The Bevy hasn’t got all the answers but we reckon we have a blueprint of how pubs can change and survive into the future.

Because you know what, after so long in lockdown and with a mental health and isolation epidemic, just like your local football club, they are needed more than ever.

FLASH FLOODS, THE FA CUP AND OIL WELLS

To be printed in the first league game of the National League South season v Chelmsford City Saturday 14th August 2021

Arriving by steam train after sleeping by a ditch in the rain would have been a memorable way to celebrate 150 years of the FA Cup. With East Grinstead only a few miles away from our campsite I was planning to get on the Bluebell Railway but with tickets at £25 and coming dressed as a Glastonbury mud-cake and messing up their lovingly restored trains made me change transport plans. I scrubbed off some muck, wiped my feet at the turnstiles mat and entered their smartly wasp-coloured stadium to see East Grinstead Town take on Alfold in the FA Cup extra preliminary round. Just 13 victories and a Wembley final would be theirs.

This was the same week when Manchester City bought Jack Grealish for £100 million, adding more muscle to the footballing equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters.

You couldn’t be much further in footballing terms than East Grinstead and Manchester City but the fact that they both play in the same competition is something; the chances of meeting, well I wouldn’t bet my house on it – but it’s the same rules, the same ball, but that’s where the similarity ends.

What really rankles is the fact that Slough get fined for refusing to fulfil fixtures during a pandemic, while Man City walk away with slapped wrists despite wanting to destroy the football pyramid and breaking fair play rules. It’s how the rich and powerful always operate, and you have to be rich and powerful to own a top end football club. Owning an oil well or two means you wont go bust, although climate change might cause chaos to the fixture list. I presume owning a football club probably wont be worth as much when most of the world is either burning or under water, so it might be worth switching to water polo.

This was only the second time Alfold had entered the FA Cup. Their rise up the leagues has been impressive and they now play in the Southern Combination Premier, which has about as much claim to being Premier as a Premier Inn. East Grinstead have struggled in their six seasons in the Isthmian League but the have an impressive ground, lovely pitch and decent support including a few who got behind them during the game. Mind you singing ‘Who the fucking hell are you’ to the smattering of Alfold fans was hopefully more than a little ironic. Despite a new manager, they just couldn’t gel, hardly had a shot on goal and ended up in a sort of giant killing 2-1 defeat. £1,125 in the pot for the winners, £375 to the losers (money cut to from previous years thanks to the pandemic).

What I love about any level of football is the passion of fans. 147 plus all the volunteers, players and friends is a decent crowd. The fact that lower league crowds are growing is in part to people being disillusioned with what’s happening at top level football, which isn’t really much of a competitive sport when those who spend the most nearly always win.

But its not just about making football predictable, it creates a transfer race to the top, with clubs that try to keep up ending up as financial basket cases. Mind you, Barcelona’s mismanagement is off the scale. A staggering One Billion pounds in debt; no wonder they bet on a Super League as their get-out of-debt card. They are still talking about starting the Super League with just 3 clubs signed up which would make the Scottish Premiership look competitive.

Barcelona’s wage bill accounts for 110% of their expenditure while Premier League wages were £3.25 million in 2019/20 – an increase of 3,118% since the the Premier League was formed nearly 30 years ago.

Accrington's financially savvy chairman Andy Holt nailed it again “The hardest thing when running a football club… is accepting you can’t just have who you want, accepting the massive disadvantage against others blowing their brains in. Unless you have an oil well that is. Some owners are so wealthy they will never run out of cash. They only need to pay lip service to the rules.” I wonder who he means.

The week before the cup, I took a trip to Storrington for the opening campaign in the Southern Combination Division One to cheer on Shoreham. After re-organisation Shoreham didn’t qualify for this seasons FA Cup, but there must be a way to give some Step six clubs a go. Ironically last season they got hammered by Alfold who were debuting in the FA Cup. On the bus we were treated to torrential downpours and flash flooding and the nearby Hassocks game was called off (their FA Cup game was also off due to a waterlogged pitch. At the beginning of August).
Storrington is a picturesque Sussex village where only a lairy goose and puddle splashing cars gave me any bother. So I was a little surprised to see three police in attendance. Apparently its because the club and its surrounds keep getting vandalised; cos what you really want to do is smash up the few community facilities a place has. A crowd of 76 saw Shoreham's Musselmen dominate and come out comfortable 4-0 winners.

Shoreham are on a mission to be carbon neutral and managed to get a grant from the Football Foundation to change their floodlights to much more energy efficient LED. Yet they still needed planning permission to quite literally change a lightbulb which of course cost time and money.

I get why people shake their heads in disbelief at the state of football, but scratch beneath the surface and up and down the country teams like East Grinstead, Storrington, Alfold and Shoreham are the glue that helps bind communities together. This is the football we should be out celebrating and supporting.

LIVING LIFE IN THE SLOUGH LANE

To be printed in the friendly against Arsenal XI Tuesday 10th August 2021

Well it’s only been 18 months since I last saw Slough kick a ball – unless you count that play off defeat we all watched in the Wheatsheaf or sat Billy-no-mates style in my darkened office with a drink.

I mean, I really got so near. The first friendly of the season, catch up with people over a few beers as a warm up to the England game. A proper football Saturday like I hadn’t had for such a long time. But in a taxi outside the Badshot Lea ground the covid call came. ‘The test is positive. You better come home.’

This wasn’t quite the ‘Coming Home’ song I was hoping to hear later in the pub, but the crap covid delta-mix version that was ripping through schools.

As the dawn of isolation began to cloud my mind, any worries of just how ill my eldest was, was quickly dismissed when he appeared in a mask laughing and coughing that I couldn't go to the pub to watch England. Anyone want to adopt a 15 year old?

Next up was a planned trip home against Hayes, but the plague put paid too that fixture so I planted some climbing French beans instead.

During all this chaos a new listening National League decided to throw the rule book at us and a number of other clubs who refused to play on when covid was through the roof; there was no vaccine, no testing for our part-time players and no cash for us to play on. But for having the audacity to say no more, we've been fined for not playing games that would later be null and voided by the same organisation dishing out the fines! Hello. Rules are rules are rules are rules right? Well what about League Rule 8.39 which allows clubs not to fulfil a fixture if they have 'just cause.'? You'd have thought a global pandemic and the resulting financial problems for clubs was exactly that.

Amidst all this, one highlight has been watching the development of a very successful U23 squad. I can see many of them getting some ping-tastic opportunities this season they might not normally have had. Let's hope none of them get any ideas to introduce infected blankets to force the issue. 

So my prediction for this season is to expect the unexpected, but as Slough fans we’ve had plenty of ups and downs over the years, football roller-coasters we can take in our stride.

So let’s raise a glass to those supporters who unfortunately wont see the new season, raise our voices on the terraces, start to enjoy life a little again while meeting up with our football family; because you never know what’s round the corner.

Fasten your seat belts everyone and get ready to enjoy another season of Living Life in the Slough Lane.