Chertsey Town FC
28 Alwyns Lane
Chertsey
Surrey
KT16 9DW
Ground: 98
Date: Saturday 16th November 2019
Chertsey Town 2-2 Westfield
Isthmian League Division 1 South Central
Attendance: 414 (official)
Chertsey Town - History
Chertsey Town were founded in 1890 and initially played in the West Surrey League. After World War 1, the club joined the Surrey Intermediate League and remained there until the outbreak of World War 2, refusing an invitation to become founding members of the Surrey Senior League in 1923; after World War 2, though, the club gained senior status and opted to join the Senior League. The club then won the league title three times in the early 1960s and decided to turn professional to join the Metropolitan League in 1963.
The club spent three years at this higher level before mounting costs forced the club to drop down to the lower levels of the Greater London League. After one season at this level, the club moved up to the Spartan League in the 1967/68 season. The club remained in this league for the best part of a decade and mostly languished near the bottom of the league, apart from when they finished as runners-up in the 1974/75 season.
Two seasons after that, the club moved up to the Athenian League and finished bottom of Division 2 in their first season (which was the season before the two divisions merged). After a series of indifferent finishes, the club then transferred to Division 2 South of the Isthmian League for the 1984/85 season and finished bottom to suffer relegation to the Combined Counties League. The club then finished as runners-up at this level to immediately return to Division 2 South.
The club spent five seasons in Division 2 South before being placed in Division 3 after restructuring. The club then finished as runners-up in Division 3 to earn promotion to Division 2, before finishing as runners-up in their second season in Division 2 (the 1993/94 season) to earn promotion to Division 1. A 3rd-place finish was then enough to earn promotion to the Premier Division, where the club remained for two seasons before being relegated back to Division 1.
After this, the turn into the new millennium saw the club drop into Division 2. After two seasons at this level, the club were placed in Division 1 South for the 2002/03 season as part of restructuring, but finished bottom and were relegated back to Division 2. After another three seasons at this level, further restructuring led to the dissolution of Division 2 and saw the club placed in the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League for the 2006/07 season.
The club consistently finished in the top half of the Premier Division and finished as runners-up in both the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons, with the latter being enough to earn promotion to Division 1 Central ahead of local rivals Guildford City. The club's three seasons at this level saw them seriously struggle, first finishing 17th before just staving off relegation with a third-from-bottom finish in the 2012/13 season. However, the 2013/14 season saw the club finish second-from-bottom to return to the Combined Counties League.
The club then spent the next five years attempting to rebuild in the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League, narrowly avoiding relegation in the 2014/15 season and steadily moving up a couple of places each season after that. However, the 2018/19 season was a massive improvement for the club as they ran away with the league and comfortably won the league title to earn promotion to Division 1 South Central of the Isthmian League.
In the FA Cup, the club have progressed to the 3rd Qualifying Round on five occasions, most recently this season when they beat Cobham, Erith & Belvedere, Sheppey United and Biggleswade before losing to Maldon & Tiptree. In the FA Trophy, the club have reached the 3rd Qualifying Round on three occasions, most recently in the 2011/12 season when they beat Chalfont St Peter and Ashford Town before losing to Brackley Town.
As for the FA Vase, the club came out as winners last season: they started by beating Woodley United in the 1st Qualifying Round before beating Tadley Calleva, Flackwell Heath, Horndean, Redbridge, AFC St. Austell, Irlam, West Auckland Town, Northwich Victoria over two legs and then Cray Valley Paper Mills 3-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium.
My Visit
After a busy footballing weekend last time out, I was hoping for something a bit more relaxed this time around. Initially, I had hoped to visit Banstead Athletic this weekend for their match against Raynes Park Vale, but that plan changed a week or so ago for a couple of reasons: firstly, we're now firmly in the build-up to Christmas, so my groundhopping funds are going to be more limited this month; secondly, I wanted to save up for something major for my 100th groundhop at the end of the month (which I'll talk about more at the end of this section).
With all that in mind, I had to change my plans to stick more local yesterday. I found that I didn't have many options (I was in fact limited to this, Reading City, Badshot Lea and Farnborough), but the options I did have were interesting enough. Of the four, though, I was most interested in Reading City and set that as my first choice.
Unfortunately, that match was already looking very likely to be postponed on Friday evening, so I did a quick reassessment of my other options before opting to check again in the morning. Upon doing so, I was unsurprised to see Reading City's match was postponed for a waterlogged pitch, so I went straight into preliminary research for my other options (i.e. looking at league tables, train times and the weather forecasts).
After all of that, this match ended up becoming my first choice and I booked my train tickets at 11am, having an early lunch before midday and then leaving the house at around 12:45pm. I arrived at the station with fifteen minutes to spare and picked up my train tickets before popping into WHSmith's to buy the other limited edition Cadbury's chocolate bar (having bought the gingerbread one last week).
I then began the journey towards Chertsey, first changing at Woking before changing again at Weybridge (one of my least favourite train stations due to it being impossible to get any signal there) and eventually arriving in Chertsey at around 2:10pm. It was then a simple 15-minute walk to the ground and, upon arrival, I paid £9 for admission and £2 for a programme before beginning my circuit of photos. In doing my circuit, I missed off a small section of terracing immediately next to the turnstiles, meaning that I didn't get a photo of the actual teamsheet (and didn't even notice there was one until I walked past it on the way out of the ground).
For the duration of the match, I took a seat near the front of the main stand, having good views of all the pitch other than the near corner closest to the turnstiles (which was blocked off by the away dugout).
Looking at the table, I was expecting a close but entertaining contest while also hoping that the two sides wouldn't just cancel each other out as often happens when teams near the top of a league play each other.
Here's my report on one of the most entertaining matches I've watched this season, with two attacking sides trading blows in an exciting end-to-end contest:
From the start, both teams made clear their intent to attack with pace and in numbers, and this meant that both defences were wide open in the early stages of the match. This saw Chertsey almost immediately score at one end, before Westfield almost did the same at the other end through Max Blackmore: he had space to shoot after a cross from Aaron Watson, but his effort was quickly closed down and blocked by Chertsey goalkeeper Nick Jupp. The match remained end-to-end for quite some time, but Westfield were having the better chances: in the 13th minute, a free kick from deep was headed into the post and went wide; then, in the 19th minute, Blackmore nodded a cross on for Watson to shoot low, forcing Jupp into a fine save.
However, it was Chertsey who scored first in the 27th minute: Lubomir Guentchev latched onto a cross and volleyed emphatically beyond Westfield keeper Gary Ross from just inside the box. This saw the momentum of the match swing in Chertsey's favour for a while as they began to control proceedings, but Westfield were able to equalise against the run of play before half-time: in the 41st minute, a through ball eluded the Chertsey defence and reached Blackmore, who had space to turn and shoot low to score. Chertsey almost reclaimed their lead straight away as they went straight back on the attack, Jake Baxter's low shot from the left wing going inches wide of the post. 1-1 at half-time.
The second half started where the first left off as both teams went straight on the attack again, with Chertsey coming close to retaking the lead in the 48th minute before Westfield almost took the lead four minutes later: for Chertsey, Samuel Murphy shot low from the right but pulled it narrowly wide; for Westfield, a Harry Carter through ball gave Arsen Ujkaj space to shoot inside the box, with Jupp blocking the initial effort before a defender blocked the attempted rebound.
After this initial flurry, though, the intensity dropped off as the match became very scrappy and tensions between the two sides grew and occasionally threatened to boil over. This also saw the ball being played in the air more and more, despite both teams doing a far better job with it played on the ground. However, an excellent Westfield goal in the 76th minute brought the match back to life: Watson picked up the ball on the right wing and charged into the box, dribbling past a couple of defenders before crossing at the byline for Tinashe Nkoma to tap in. In response, Chertsey upped the intensity in search of an equaliser, but struggled to break through a resilient Westfield backline.
Deep into stoppage time, Chertsey made their pressure count and equalised: a goalbound header from Scott Day was saved by Ross, before falling to Murphy on the edge of the box to half-volley into the top corner. The home side almost went on to win it moments later when Ross miscued a goal kick into the path of Chertsey's Baxter: Baxter played the ball to Jonathan Hippolyte on the wing, who charged into the box and passed to Murphy in the six yard box for a tap-in. Unfortunately for the home side, Murphy was in an offside position and the goal was ruled out. Chertsey went on one last attack after this, but they could not find a winner before the full-time whistle went.
Overall, despite the drop in intensity for much of the second half, this match was thoroughly entertaining throughout as both teams constantly looked to attack, both with pace and with numbers. It was fortunate that, despite recent poor weather, the pitch had held up very well and actually made it possible for the match to be played like that; on either of last week's pitches, none of the attacking play on display here would have been possible at all. That was just one part of an enjoyable groundhopping experience though, with the excellent ground, excellent atmosphere and friendly welcome also contributing to a great day out (and, for once, a dry one too).
The journey back started with me sitting around at Chertsey station for twenty minutes waiting for the train to Weybridge. With the suggested route South Western Railway gave me when ordering, it was then looking like I'd have to wait a further twenty minutes at Weybridge to get to Woking, but I checked the trains and noticed that there was one to Woking departing three minutes after I would arrive. Naturally, I ran to get onto that and, after all was said and done, ended up back at Guildford station just after 6pm, allowing me to make a much earlier start on my photos and match report than usual.
Currently, my plan for next Saturday is to finally visit Farnham Town, though I know their pitch doesn't handle rain very well so I have back-ups in mind. As for my 100th groundhop, my initial plan was to head to Lancing in the FA Vase, but I don't think I'm likely to be able to afford that in the build-up to Christmas. Instead, I'm hoping that Bromley win their FA Cup replay on Tuesday so that they host Plymouth Argyle in the next round, as one of my friends from back home (his name is Toby) supports Plymouth, so it would be nice to meet up with him for that if he can get the day off work. If not (or if Bromley don't win), I'll be aiming for either Maidenhead or Leatherhead on the 30th (and a Magic the Gathering event in Aldershot on the Sunday if Toby is free and Bromley end up losing).
The Ground
Alwyns Lane is an excellent ground with plenty of character, reminiscent to Egham Town's Runnymede Stadium in lots of ways. As with that ground, there is cover on all four sides of the ground. On the near side is the impressive old main stand, which contains a mixture of old wooden seats and new plastic seats, overall providing seating for around 200-300 people (as a rough guess).
Either side of this stand is a couple of steps of uncovered terracing, as well as the clubhouse on the side closest to the turnstiles. Some segregation gates are in place on the other side of the stand (no doubt these were in use in the Vase semi-final in March).
Directly across from the main stand is a large area of covered standing (with a characterful uneven roof) that covers much of the length of the pitch. There are two steps of terracing inside this, and either side of it is more uncovered terracing. There is another large covered standing area behind the near goal, which covers almost the full length behind the goal and has a single step of terracing for elevation. Behind this is the tea bar and the toilets.
Behind the far goal is a smaller area of cover, which provides some standing cover along the single step of terracing there. The rest of the ground is open hard standing, with an overall capacity of 2,500 and plenty of room for expansion (though I would imagine the ground is at least good enough for Step 3 in its current state). Everything at the ground is painted in the club's blue and white and looks to be very well-maintained. The record attendance at the ground is 2,150 for a match against Aldershot Town in 2003.
Photos
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