IS THIS A DIOCESE

 

Printed in the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying round replay v Chichester City Tuesday 17th September 2024  We won 2-1 in front of 519

The FA Cup has given me some of my best Slough Town memories. 3-1 down to Reading then scoring two injury time goals to get a replay. Beating Paul Mersons Walsall when we were homeless. Sutton in a penalty shoot out replay in the rain.

I missed the Millwall game as I was working. Apparently some local lad called Gary Attrell won it for us.

In fact my first ever Slough away game was against Carshalton in one of the qualifying rounds. I can’t remember the score.

So while Slough were still playing friendlies, the competition began and I had to get in on some extra preliminary action. Bexhill was my first destination, its art deco art centre and 1920’s mock Tudor grandstand by the sea calling me. Except they share with the cricket so the game was moved to Hailsham which wasn’t quite so tempting.

So Eastbourne United Association it was then. I’ve been to Borough and Town; time to add United to this non league three teams town (there used to be four until Shinewater merged with United).

As a supped my pint in a boozer across the road from their Oval ground I was told that due to redevelopments the game had been moved to Newhaven. Oh fiddlesticks.

So a two hour round trip to see nothing, ending up back in the middle of town during Pride weekend where Brighton feels like Glastonbury without the mud or tents but hit by a million glitter balls.

The next cup game I was away in Hay-on-Wye but my FA Cup antennae sniffed out Malvern Town V Cleethorpes Town.

And now the Rebels were entering at the 2nd Qualifying round.

Chichester away was perfect. A new ground for everyone and just 50 smug minutes on the train for me. I’d visited the cathedral before for a meeting when we inadvertently went into the front room where the Archdeacon was watching TV. He looked as startled as us.

I arrived early and found a cafe amongst the cathedrals, churches and fancy cake shops. The diocese – which basically means district - is one of the largest in the Church of England, stretching nearly 100 miles.

Slowly the place started to fill up with Rebels – with large queues at the turnstiles and even larger at the bar.

Since Chichester merged with another local club briefly becoming City United they’ve progressed up the leagues, done up the ground and are now an Isthmian Premier League side. They even reached the second round proper recently after Bury went bust and they got a bye.

There were no signs showing your where to get to the football ground – apparently the local council won’t allow it.

A decent crowd of nearly 500 meant it was quite hard to see anything, but Chichester took the lead and held on until the 55th minute. Then in the 88th minute we scored again. Or maybe we didn’t. I was right behind the goal and it didn’t seem to cross the line, like some optical illusion. If we couldn’t tell standing right behind the goal, how hard was it for the match officials to know? Then in added time Chichester evened things up for a replay back at Arbour Park.

It seems ridiculous to scrap FA Cup replays in the so called proper rounds but not the qualifiers. If anything I would scrap the qualifying round replays and keep the proper round ones. Who would want to miss our trips to Grimsby and Reading ? These replays have also been a financial lifeline for many clubs – Exeter said it saved them from financial ruin when they drew with Manchester United. But we know us smaller teams don’t matter in the scheme of things.

As for Slough once again in these early rounds we got a get-out-of-jail card. I would love us to get to the 3rd round. We hold the unwanted record of getting to the 2nd round the most times of any club in the country but never reaching the 3rd.

I wonder if we would ever get that monkey off our back as I scratched my head and wondered if anything rhymes with Diocese. I pray there is.