ONE SLOUGH BEYOND

Printed in the National League South game v St.Albans City Easter Monday 1st April 2024  We drew 2-2 in front of  1162

Photo Scott McNeish 

Who doesn’t like the Easter weekend. The clocks go forward, the sun shines (well, maybe) it’s the first Bank Holiday of the year and we can gorge ourselves on Easter eggs, hot cross buns and football. The Wheatsheaf Pub holds its annual Bobstock music festival and long lost sons and daughters come back to their town of birth like mating salmon.

But let’s rewind to the last home game against Eastbourne Borough, who despite going full time are staring relegation in the face. It was Non League Day a genius idea now in its 14th year that encourages those who support a league team to go and watch their local non league sides when there’s an international break (I really don’t like the term Non League, like we all play in some fluid jazz quartet).

To be honest with crowds of a thousand plus since the new year, every home game feels like Non League Day at Arbour Park and we’ve got more pay-less deals than a supermarket. And in any case, post covid people are flocking to lower league football with crowds up across the pyramid.

The National League is in reality Division Three and Oxford City have already found out to their cost that its impossible to compete without serious financial resources. This isn’t helped with just two going up to the Football League. Surely it’s time for three up, three down which will reduce the bottle neck that then ripples down to our level and makes clubs spend money they haven’t got (something I will no doubt do over this weekend). With the Football Governance Bill finally going to become law let’s hope footballs disaster capitalism model is going to change and no more clubs go bust.

Anyhow, I digress. After a bit of a slow burner in the first half – well apart from two disallowed Slough goals – the second half was a cross between a basket ball match and an FA Cup tie; end to end with Slough nearly finding a winner with a power shot from Trae Cook-Appiah which smashed into the right post and bounced just wide.

The officials were in the spotlight with their first half display – the worst ones ever apparently and they looked like they got at least one of our chalked off goals wrong. After tasting a season or three of VAR with Brighton that’s not the route I want to go down and another reason to ditch that Premier League season ticket as VAR sucks the joy out of the moment. Maybe that’s why I prefer the lower league jazz ensemble vibes.

Officials will make mistakes, just like players and managers do. Years ago I would have been fuming but we had no social media then to vent our spleens. Which was probably a good thing and we still managed to do that with our fanzine. I’ve always said there should be a breathalyser that stops your words being published if the computer smells alcohol on your breath. And after checking Eastbourne's social media – guess what? Borough supporters complaining about the worst officials ever.

So onto Good Fridays football which was proving to to be a logistical nightmare but at least I hadn’t booked myself into hotel rooms in Plymouth like a few keen Slough fans where Truro had originally settled for the season. They were of course now playing 4 counties away from home at Gloucester City which has got to be some sort of you-must-be-lost-playing-here record. Oh and the fact they still have to play 25 games in a matter of minutes.

Going 20 games unbeaten at home is some feat – the 6th best run in the clubs entire history – and we all want it to continue till the end of the season. (*Just for the record Gary the Stat pointed out that the best is a staggering 54 in the 1973/74 season).

Slough used to have a massive musical scene but now the Wheatsheafs BobStock promoter Buzz struggles to find non covers bands to play. Infact he was getting so desperate he was going to book the Slough Town Behind The Goal Orchestra but our instruments were all being polished for today and he couldn’t fit the bin into the pub. Or afford our bar bill. So lets get Nick the Trumpet to serenade everyone a few more times with One Slough Beyond for the penultimate home game of the season.

ROAMING REBELS

 

Printed in the National League South game v Eastbourne Borough Saturday 23rd March 2024  Non League Day. We drew 1-1 in front of 1085.

Its fair to say there’s no love lost between Slough and Havant – probably not helped by us singing ‘Going Down with the Dover’ to remind them of their predicament second bottom of the league.

As I walked into their pub next to the ground (Arbour Park needs a pub open every night like this) one guy was still moaning about that abandoned game a few seasons back where the ball wouldn’t bounce on the bog of a pitch. They just wont let it lie. They said they had no sympathy for our Bath abandonment and reckoned our joint managers at the time had threatened the ref if any of the Slough players got injured. To be honest they were more likely to drown. I was the lone Rebel in sea of Slough hate, so changed the subject to our mutual respect for their former manager Steve King who worked wonders rooting a full time club to to the bottom of the league.

As our play off push looks a little too far, it’s that time of the year when I can’t help looking at who we might be facing next season.

No one wants to see today's opponents Eastbourne relegated as it’s a proper seaside trip and from a selfish geographical perspective, if we lost them and Worthing I would actually cry.

Welling are groundsharing at Tonbridge next season while their place gets redeveloped, which is a shame. Not for the ground, which does need a revamp but Welling is still a proper high street with shops that sell stuff and you can even do a pub crawl if you’re that way inclined. This seems so rare nowadays I'm surprised the High Street is not on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

You got to feel sorry for Taunton – well I did until I heard they sacrificed infrastructure and pitch improvements to spend money on players to keep them up. With the wettest winter ever, that decision is coming back to bite them – with no income at all over the past few months.

We’ve still got to play Truro but god knows where that will be. If we saw the back of those two West Country teams I wouldn’t shed a tear – especially as that might soak their pitch even more.

There was an interview in the Non League Paper about how ground grading is becoming computerised to help the Premier League Stadium Improvement Fund identify best where to support clubs. There was a lot of talk about clubs becoming more financial sustainable with an emphasis on pitches. Alliance chair Mark Harris said ‘Everyone knows that the weather has wreaked havoc with fixtures in some regions...Neither the FA nor Leagues can control the weather, but by working together we can focus clubs minds on the importance of investing in their pitches to ensure they are of the highest possible standard, and that pitch maintenance is fit for purpose.’

No one would miss Chelmsford's running track but it’s very likely that we will be playing at the Hornchurch one. The mind boggles where that name came from. And I had the same thoughts when I got off the train at Braintree. Must be an Essex thing.

Selfishly I want Hastings promoted – its a great weekend place to visit. I’ve never been to Enfield Towns new ground and I’ve got a lot of respect for the first fan owned club in the country. But how about Wingate and Finchley – punching well above their weight on tiny crowds and a listed art deco stand.

From the Southern Premier – well we’ve all been to Chesham whose ground could do with some TLC. Salisbury is a public transport pig to get too so how about Gosport – where I have to get a boat too. Admittedly by the time you sit down on the boat its time to get off, but still – crossing the sea for a football match is always a novelty.

Its bloody miles away but I’ve got a soft spot for Merthyr who are also fan owned. And there’s a shop in the towns market that just sells Welsh cakes. I hired a van last time to bring hundreds back.

Looking at the National League and apart from Oxford who will probably end up in the north – its seriously tight with 14 clubs still in the relegation mix. It would be funny if Dorking got relegated and everyone likes to get vertigo in Woking's big stand but really its got to be Maidenheads time to finally take the tumble and treat us to some proper festive derbies that we’ve seriously lacked recently.

I never got to visit Yeovil's new ground which is a shame as they still look nailed on to go up. I also want to salute our quick thinking management team who gave Yeovil fans the chance to go behind the goal in the second half. There was lots of complaints from their supporters that they couldn’t see in the first half and we’ve gone to quite a few places this season where we’ve felt like second class citizens. It meant for one of our biggest ever home league crowds there was a cracking atmosphere even if the game was more a war of attrition. From playing Sunderland to now Slough Town as they say, but Yeovil turned up in numbers and fair play to them. Perhaps they were only here for the Mars Bars?

Like Slough they have travelled up and down the leagues which does give you an opportunity to visit new places and meet new friends – and hopefully wave goodbye to a few waterloo ones who crossed you off their Christmas card list a long time ago.

ZEN FOOTBALL

 

Printed in the National League South game v Yeovil Town Saturday 16th March 2024  We drew 0-0 in front of 1533

Blimey just were to begin….

Well let’s start by saying that one of the really enjoyable things about this season is there’s no pressure.

Once any threat of relegation had eased, the only way was up – and no one gave us a cat in hells chance of being within touching distance of the play offs.

So now we can watch games in a Zen like state – assuming Budhists drink and don’t get distracted by hundred miles an hour heavy metal football. So but we shake our bells and rattle tambouries like some relgious ritual to ward off ever losing at home again.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks – culminating in the Bath City manager refusing to let his players go back on the pitch cos they’d been such a big pause, two of his players had ingrown toenails. Anyone would think he’d never heard of half time and keeps his players jogging round the pitch rather than resting.

The fact that the guy who fainted was ok, sitting up in the physio room and speaking to his wife didn’t matter to him. Bath still trailing by two goals and with just one sub on the bench mattered a whole lot more.

A few years back, when our goal keeper Mark Scott suffered a broken neck their was an ambulance on the pitch and a lengthy delay. Slough didn’t even have a stand in keeper so one of our outfield players went in goal but the game restarted.

As people shuffled out the ground, it left a sour taste on what was just a brilliant day – yes we had put in one the best first half performances I can remember in front of our biggest home league crowd for six years but it was more than that.

Talking to a clearly deflated Ade who had spent months helping pull the day together the big fundraising day for Thames Hospice just made me angrier – the Bath fans were good as gold but I hope their club choke on their play off ambitions and their manager is made to scrub that Twerton Park outside toilet block for the rest of eternity.

So can we do it? At the Dartford game I said to some of their supporters that I didn’t want promotion – and they asked if that showed a lack of ambition. Maybe, but also a sense of realism of what it would entail. But also how you measure ambition. I measure our community pub not just in the pints poured and the cash through the tills – just as well given our recent circumstances - but how we can bring people together and change lives. I got chatting to one lady after our Friday seniors club. Struggling with her health, she said it’s the only time she leaves the house and spends the rest of the time home alone, never seeing another human just speaking to her dog. She’s started to stay a bit later and likes to laugh and joke with everyone and in a short space of time everyone knows her name. The other day when her cab didn’t show, one of the regulars whizzed her in his car home.

So what’s that got to do with football? To my mind, ambition for Slough Town means increasing crowds and their diversity, becoming the number one place that people meet in a town that has the least places to go for a pint or a dance – using that negative as an opportunity (Christ, I sound like one of those Amerian self help word soup gurus). More teams under the Rebels umbrella, players coming through the ranks to the first team and beyond. Improving the stadium so we can actually see behind the goals. I know ultimately everything for football teams gets measured on the pitch but you have to have the infrastruture, the support to push on so when times are hard you have a loyalty that sticks with you. A football club that is more than just about ninety minutes on the pitch, that needs to continually generate income and support the team when things aren’t going so well.

The Bath City game was the culmination of all that is good about the club, about doing things the right way. Yes winning is fun but meeting mates and having a good laugh, well that too me is also what its all about. And showing a bit more class than some we won’t mention. I reckon that matters as well.

BRAZIL OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE

Printed in the National League South game v Bath City Saturday 2^nd March 2024  We were winning 4-2 until game was abandoned in front of 1401 - biggest league crowd for years. 

Slough being Slough it wouldn’t be long before a Brazilian came along to Arbour Park. Being nosy one matchday I decided to introduce myself and find out who was this stylish man behind the goal.

Tell us about yourself

“I'm Matheus Pinto, I was born in Brazil in a "small" town of a hundred thousand people called Barra do Piraí, about 60 miles uphill from Rio de Janeiro. I also spent 12 years of my life in Lisbon, Portugal, my second home, before coming to Cambridge in 2018 to work in the booming video games industry – firstly as an English to Brazilian Portuguese translator at Jagex Ltd, one of the biggest British-founded studios in the industry, then as a tech lead and project manager at the same company.”

How did you end up in Slough?

“After the COVID pandemic hit, my company switched to a hybrid work style for a while before ultimately deciding to allow us to work fully remote from anywhere within the United Kingdom. So after a while I decided to escape the soaring housing costs in Cambridge and try and find a place closer to London, where I already spent a big part of my free time visiting friends and attending events, and Slough ticked all the boxes, being relatively more affordable and so well connected via public transport.”

How did you end up in Arbour Park?

“Ever since I was a kid, I have always been connected to non-league football: my late grandfather was an honorary president of Royal Sport Club, where former Chelsea midfielder Ramires started his footballing

career; my uncle used to be my youth coach at their rivals Central Sport Club (where I quickly found out a footballing career was not on the cards for me) and my father has been a lifelong supporter of Bangu Atlético Clube – once a major force in Brazilian football back in the 80s, but long since removed from the big stages.

So when I felt the football itch starting to come up at the pre-season, I looked no further than my local Slough Town to scratch it, a decision I do not regret – Scott's team have provided us with many remarkable moments in this season so far, and seem on track to continue to do so!”

What's the best thing about coming to the football?

“Undoubtedly the atmosphere – I have been extremely well received by everyone in Arbour Park, from club (and bar!) staff to players, management and fellow supporters, and it is truly beautiful to see people from all ages and backgrounds getting behind a club with such a great history and such strong ties to its community. I feel naturally more drawn to the "loud crowd", so during the games you will usually find me behind the opposition's woodwork, chanting, playing tambourine (thanks Warren!) and cheering on our Rebels no matter what the scoreboard says, trying to play a little part in what makes Arbour Park this fortress that other teams don't relish a visit to.”

Anything you think that could be improved?

“Not at all, I think everyone at the club is doing a fantastic job and that is reflected in the rise in attendance numbers and our slow-but-steady climb through the league table. Everything is done with a level of professionalism that is often not found in semi-professional clubs, and any improvements shall come naturally as a result of all the hard work that is being put in the club. COYR!”