Wingate & Finchley FC
Maurice Rebak Stadium
Summers Lane
Finchley
London
N12 0PD
Ground: 94
Date: Saturday 26th October 2019
Wingate & Finchley 1-1 Hayes & Yeading United
FA Trophy 1st Qualifying Round
Attendance: 126 (official)
Wingate & Finchley - History
Wingate & Finchley were founded in 1991 as a merger of Wingate (founded in 1946) and Finchley (founded in 1874). The new club took Wingate's place in the Premier Division of the South Midlands League for the 1991/92 season and remained there for a further three seasons, before a runners-up finish in the 1994/95 season saw the club earn promotion to Division 3 of the Isthmian League.
The club's initial spell in Division 3 lasted four seasons, before a runners-up finish saw them earn promotion to Division 2 for the 1999/2000 season. However, the club finished third-from-bottom and were immediately relegated back to Division 3. After two more seasons in Division 3, a 7th-place finish was enough to earn promotion to Division 1 North due to restructuring taking place for the 2002/03 season.
After two seasons in Division 1 North, the club were transferred to the Southern League's Eastern Division for two seasons, finishing 12th in both before being transferred back to Division 1 North of the Isthmian League. In the 2009/10 season, the club finished 3rd and competed in the play-offs, but lost to Enfield Town. Another 3rd-place finish came the following season, and this time the club won the play-offs, beating Harlow Town and Brentwood Town to earn promotion to the Premier Division.
Their first season in the Premier Division saw the club finish in mid-table, but the following two seasons saw them struggle near the bottom and only narrowly escape relegation (the club were however reprieved in the 2013/14 season due to Worksop Town's resignation from the Northern Premier League). The next two seasons saw the club finish in mid-table, and this was followed by a 5th-place finish in the 2016/17 season; this saw the club compete in the play-offs, but they lost to Bognor Regis Town in the semi-finals. The club finished 9th the following season, before narrowly avoiding relegation at the end of last season.
The club's best FA Cup run has seen them reach the 3rd Qualifying Round three times, most recently in the 2015/16 season: that season, they beat Long Buckby and Concord Rangers before losing to Weston-super-Mare. In the FA Trophy, the club progressed as far as the 2nd Round last season, beating Sittingbourne, Tiverton Town, Chippenham Town and Dulwich Hamlet before losing to Hemel Hempstead Town. As for the FA Vase, the club reached the 3rd Round in the 1994/95 season, beating Welwyn Garden City, Bowers United and Leighton Town before losing to Basildon United.
My Visit
Over the past week or two, my plans for yesterday's groundhop were changing almost constantly for any number of reasons. Part of the reason for this is also having to take next weekend and the weekend after into account, making sure I don't stretch my finances too thin in the process while also making sure I leave enough cheap options left to get me through the season.
The first decision I reached was to either go to an FA Trophy game yesterday or an FA Vase game next Saturday, with it quickly becoming apparent that I had next to no options for the latter. As I mentioned last week, though, that would depend on how Westside's game in midweek went and, naturally, that meant they ended up losing. So, after that, I initially committed to the back-up plan laid out last week, before considering changing that to instead go to Leatherhead in the Trophy and then somewhere more expensive next Saturday.
However, upon seeing on Twitter that Leatherhead charge £12 for Step 3 football, I decided to reconsider. I then looked at going to Fareham Town yesterday and then somewhere cheaper next week, but I scrapped that idea on Thursday after another hopper suggested that Fareham's pitch doesn't hold up well to the rain (plenty of rain was forecast, so that seemed a smart decision at the time). I then decided to head into London instead, giving me an excuse to top up my Oyster Card before Bedfont & Feltham in two week's time.
I initially found six or seven non-3G options in London with the Groundhopper app, checking the routes and timings online to eventually narrow that down to three non-3G options alongside one 3G back-up. These options were Cockfosters, St. Panteleimon (groundsharing at North Greenford United) and Wingate & Finchley, with Cockfosters as my first choice.
Come Saturday morning, however, Cockfosters hadn't posted any updates on social media at all so, with the weather already bad and looking to get worse, I didn't want to risk it and moved St. Panteleimon up to first choice. This was because they had already passed one pitch inspection at 10am, but were waiting on the outcome of a second at 1:30pm before confirming anything.
With all this in mind, I left the house just before midday and got the 12:28pm train from Guildford to Waterloo (which unfortunately was one of the hour-long services, by virtue of none of the quick services running due to engineering works). At this point, I realised that I'd left my Oyster Card at the house and that I couldn't go back and get it. So, I was forced to add my Contactless Card to my TfL account so as to be able to go anywhere once I got into London.
My train into Waterloo arrived five minutes later than planned and fifteen minutes after the second pitch inspection at St. Panteleimon. However, there were no updates about it on their social media, so I was left with little choice but to head to Wingate & Finchley for my match.
My journey on the Tube then exposed the fact that I had failed to take into account the time to get from Waterloo station onto the Tube, as I had made my plans based on getting onto the Underground at 1:45pm (i.e. when I ended up actually arriving in Waterloo) rather than at 2pm as actually occurred.
This meant that, after all was said and done (including a few minor difficulties with my new umbrella), I arrived at the ground with around five minutes to go before kick-off. I paid £6 for admission, £2 for a programme and £1 for a Golden Goal ticket (which I ended up missing out on by just two minutes) before rushing to take a seat in the main stand before kick-off. I then did my circuit of photos at half-time before returning to my seat in the stand.
The reason that this match was my third choice at the start of the day was because I honestly didn't expect too much from it, with neither side doing particularly well in their respective Step 3 leagues. With that in mind, I expected a tight and scrappy affair even before taking the weather into account.
Here's my report on a match which mostly lived up to my expectations, but was better than I had anticipated being possible in such miserable weather:
The match started at a frenetic pace as Wingate & Finchley went straight on the attack. Hayes & Yeading weren't initially able to match W&F's intensity, so it was unsurprising when the home side took the lead after 9 minutes with a fine finish: Roman Michael-Percil received the ball just outside the box and curled a right-footed shot into the top corner. After this early blow, H&Y's first notable chance came in the 23rd minute: after a cross-pitch ball, Liam McDevitt volleyed across the box to the head of Phil Roberts, whose effort was held by W&F goalkeeper Shane Gore. Six minutes later, though, it should have been 2-0 to the home side: Eoin McKeown picked up the ball from a poor H&Y defensive pass and charged into the box, only to somehow scuff his shot. W&F remained on top for the rest of the half, but couldn't take advantage of the chances they produced. 1-0 at half-time.
The second half saw H&Y start with purpose after a disappointing first half performance, but it was W&F who had the first clear-cut chance six minutes into the half: Michael-Percil found himself free in the box and shot powerfully, forcing a fine save out of H&Y goalkeeper Jack Smith. After this, the away side started to take control and forced the W&F defence to drop deep. In the 59th minute, Jack Smith found himself unmarked in the centre of the box after a cross wasn't cleared, but Gore saved his shot to concede a corner. Two minutes after this, H&Y deservedly equalised through Roberts: an initial shot from the right side of the box (from a H&Y perspective) was saved by Gore, with Roberts reacting quickest to tap in the rebound at the opposite post.
After this, the match remained finely poised for the rest of the half as both teams pushed for a winner. This saw both teams have periods of dominance, but the continuing downpour started to seriously hinder their efforts. In the end, both teams had around ten efforts on goal in the final half-hour, but neither could make them count and so it finished 1-1.
All in all, things didn't exactly go to plan yesterday at all: I ended up at my third choice match (despite my other two options going ahead, but simply not updating their social media enough on the day to make it worth the risk), didn't leave enough time for the Underground on the way there or back and didn't bring my Oyster Card either. Still, this was a reasonably entertaining match despite only having two goals, and it was good to see both teams doing their best to play despite the testing conditions.
The journey back was simple enough on the Underground, but I accidentally forgot to touch in at West Finchley due to the barriers being open, which meant I got charged a little extra for my journey this morning (I'm going for a refund, though, which I should imagine I'll get). I also didn't leave enough time again, so rather than getting the 5:50pm back to Guildford as planned, I ended up on the 6:10pm instead. This meant that I didn't get back into the house until 8pm (after a pit stop at Sainsbury's on the way back), which in turn meant that I didn't end up writing my match report up until this morning.
For next Saturday, my first choice is a trip to Reading City, but if the weather is decent during the week I may just leave it to a poll instead. The Saturday after that is still going to be a visit to Bedfont & Feltham, unless kick-off moves to the evening or something ridiculous (as I've noticed Jersey Bulls' away games don't often have 3pm kick-offs). The plan after that is to then visit Banstead Athletic on the 16th, but we'll see how that pans out closer to the time.
The Ground
The Maurice Rebak Stadium is a decent but compact ground for Step 3, with cover on three sides. The most noteworthy feature of the ground is the unusual main stand, which is notable for being double-sided (with the other side overlooking the rugby club next door) and for being very far away from the pitch. In fact, it's far enough away from the pitch for cars to drive in front of to access the car park and then for some uncovered terracing beyond that. The stand contains around 500 seats and provides good elevated views of most of the pitch (only the near corners are obscured, and that's as much to do with plants growing between them and the stand as it is to do with the stand's distance from the pitch).
Behind the far goal is a small covered terrace, with a couple of steps of uncovered terracing either side of it. There's a larger covered terrace on the far side, though this too only has a couple of steps of terracing due to how compact that side of the ground is. On top of this covered terrace is a clock, which has a Star of David on it as a reflection of the club's roots in the Jewish community. Other than the uncovered terracing next to this area of cover, the rest of the ground is open hard standing.
The ground has an overall capacity of 1,500 and, due to the compact nature of the site, there would appear to be little room for expansion. However, that should not be an issue for the time being as the ground is certainly good enough for Step 3. The ground is also shared by Step 6 side Enfield Borough, who play in Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League.
Photos
