Carshalton Athletic FC
War Memorial Sports Ground
Colston Avenue
Carshalton
Surrey
SM5 2PW
Ground: 93
Date: Saturday 19th October 2019
Carshalton Athletic 2-1 Dagenham & Redbridge
FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round
Attendance: 726 (official)
Carshalton Athletic - History
Carshalton Athletic were founded in 1905 as Mill Lane Mission, before changing to their current name in 1907 after a merger with Carshalton St Andrews. The club initially played in the Croydon & District League before earning consecutive promotions to the Southern Suburban League's Junior Division. Before the outbreak of World War 1, the club won both Division 1 West and Division 1 East of the Suburban League.
After the war, the club moved into their current ground in the 1920/21 season before becoming founder members of the Surrey Senior League two years later. This is where the club remained until World War 2, after which they successfully applied to join the London League. A year later, the club were elected into the Corinthian League. The club twice won the league title (in the 1952/53 and 1953/54 seasons) before being elected to the Athenian League for the 1956/57 season.
The club struggled in the Athenian League, regularly finishing near the bottom of the division. This culminated in relegation to Division 1 at the end of the 1965/66 season, where the club remained for seven seasons before joining Division 2 of the Isthmian League in the 1973/74 season. The club finished as runners-up in the 1976/77 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division.
The club spent the rest of the century in the Premier Division, but after finishing second-from-bottom in the 2000/01 season they were relegated to Division 1. The club spent two seasons at this level before winning the Division 1 South title to return to the Premier Division. Upon promotion, the club finished 7th in the Premier Division and, due to restructuring, were promoted into the newly-formed Conference South.
The club spent two seasons in the Conference South but struggled in both, eventually being relegated back to the Isthmian League Premier Division at the end of the 2005/06 season. The club then remained at this level until suffering relegation to Division 1 South at the end of the 2013/14 season (having been reprieved the previous season due to a points deduction for Thurrock).
The club's first season in Division 1 South saw them struggle near the bottom again, but the club soon recovered and earned promotion back to the Premier Division by winning the title in the 2017/18 season. The club's first season back at Step 3 saw them finish as runners-up, but they were defeated by Merstham in the play-off semi-finals.
In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 2nd Round in the 1982/83 season, beating Horley Town, Southwick, Egham Town, Walthamstow Avenue and Barnet before losing to Torquay United. Yesterday's victory means they will be competing in the 1st Round for the first time since the 1997/98 season. The club twice reached the Quarter Finals of the FA Amateur Cup in their six seasons in the competition. As for the FA Trophy, the club have progressed as far as the 3rd Round on numerous occasions, most recently last season when they beat Metropolitan Police, Harlow Town, Walton Casuals, Dorking Wanderers and Salisbury before losing to Barnet.
My Visit
Whenever possible, I like to watch matches in the FA Cup qualifying rounds, but the opportunity to do so in the 4th Qualifying Round hasn't come too often for me as of yet. However, I decided from the start that I was going to watch a game in it this year, no matter where I had to go to accomplish that. I had initially planned to head to Aldershot Town if they were drawn at home, but this didn't happen because of their Non-League Day offer last weekend. Even if that hadn't have been available, though, they weren't drawn at home anyway.
In fact, the FA Cup draw was very light on appealing FA Cup ties for me. Haringey Borough and Potters Bar Town were both appealing, but both were made all-ticket very quickly (though I hear that Haringey Borough wasn't all-ticket in the end). This seriously limited my options and meant that I had no choice but to use up one of my cheapest 3G options in Carshalton.
This wasn't ideal, really (as I'd have preferred to save it for when it would truly be needed later in the season), but after another week of poor weather in Guildford it was nice to go into a Saturday not worrying at all about possible postponements. As usual, though, any concerns I had proved unfounded as it ended up being nice and sunny yesterday despite all the rain during the week.
I ordered my train ticket at around 11:30am, then had an early lunch before leaving the house an hour later. My first change was at Dorking Deepdene, where I transferred across to the main Dorking station, before going direct from Dorking to Carshalton. After arriving at the station just after 2pm, it should have been a simple five minute walk to the ground. With that in mind, I chose not to use Google Maps and figured I would find it easily, but I ended up getting lost instead and wasted ten minutes.
This meant I arrived at the ground at 2:20pm, paying £10 for admission. I then did my usual circuit of photos before sitting down on the terracing while waiting for kick-off. I eventually stood up with a few minutes to go before kick-off, before moving towards the back to avoid the glare of the sun (and I had to keep moving ever so slightly throughout to avoid that glare).
As is always the case at cup games like this, my expectation was that higher-ranked Dagenham & Redbridge would make their quality show and end up coming out on top, but I was hoping to see underdogs Carshalton pull off an upset instead.
Here's my report on a match which came to life in the second half, as Carshalton deservedly pulled off a famous cupset to reach the 1st Round of the FA Cup for the first time in over twenty years (and hence the first time in my lifetime):
Dagenham & Redbridge started on the front foot in terms of possession, but it was Carshalton who had the first clear-cut chance in the 3rd minute: a half volley from the edge of the box was headed downwards and towards goal but went narrowly wide instead. From the goal kick that followed, D&R went straight up the other end and won a free kick on the right side of the box: the free kick was then palmed over for a corner by Carshalton keeper Kleton Perntreou. After this initial flurry, the rest of the half saw good chances come at a premium: both teams had efforts on goal throughout the half (D&R more so as they continued to have the majority of possession), but very few came from open play and most were wasted. This meant that it remained 0-0 going into half-time.
The second half started in a similar vein to the first, with D&R controlling proceedings and Carshalton doing their best to hold firm and take chances on the counter. This approach saw the home side take the lead through Bobby Price in the 51st minute: Christie Pattisson cut into the box and had a shot blocked, then another effort or two was blocked before the ball fell to Price, who shot low into the bottom corner to score. D&R didn't take long to respond and quickly made a couple of substitutions. This paid off in the 65th minute as substitute Reece Grant equalised for the away side: he was able to elude his marker and head in unmarked at the far post from a left-wing cross.
At this stage, the momentum seemed to have swung firmly in D&R's favour and only one outcome seemed likely. However, after weathering the storm for ten or so minutes, Carshalton made some substitutes of their own in pursuit of a winner and began to venture forwards again. In the 84th minute, that winner came courtesy of a fine solo finish from Ricky Korboa: he was able to run unchallenged down the left wing, turn past a defender on the edge of the box and shoot low to score. D&R threw everything forwards after this in search of an equaliser, but Carshalton were able to hold on for a famous victory.
Overall, this was in many ways a stereotypical cupset: Dagenham & Redbridge dominated possession for much of the match, but Carshalton held firm throughout and took advantage of counter-attacking opportunities to claim victory. Still, Carshalton deserved the win as they clearly wanted it more and, for all the possession they had, Dagenham & Redbridge were totally ineffective in front of goal. Other than that, the match was entertaining even throughout that tense first half, and the atmosphere was also excellent from the 700+ crowd.
The journey back saw me take a slightly different route - changing at Leatherhead rather than the two Dorkings - but had the same issue as the first where, for whatever reason, my train tickets would only work at the barriers at Guildford. Either way, the train got back into Guildford at 6:20pm and, after stopping at Sainsbury's on the way back to pick up a thing or two, I was back in the house at 6:50pm.
My plans for the next couple of weekends are likely to go one of two ways, depending on events in the coming days: if Westside win their FA Vase replay on Wednesday, I'll head to Colliers Wood United next Saturday followed by that game at Chessington & Hook on the 2nd; if they don't, I'm thinking of heading to Marlow in the FA Trophy next Saturday followed by Chichester City's home league game on the 2nd, but I may hold off on that if they get a home draw in the FA Cup tomorrow night. Not because I'll go there in the next round (as that's on the 9th, when I'm visiting Bedfont & Feltham for their match against Jersey Bulls), but because I would rather hold off until the cup hype dies down somewhat there.
The Ground
The War Memorial Sports Ground is an impressive traditional ground with a good amount of character for Step 3, with cover on all four sides of the ground and no Arena stands in sight. The only seated stand at the ground is on the near side and provides seating for 240 people, while the rest of that side of the ground is open hard standing.
Behind the far goal is a small goal-sized area of covered standing with hard standing either side of it. The other two sides of the ground fully consist of covered terraces, with two steps of covered terracing behind the near goal.
Then there's the covered terrace running the full length of the pitch on the far side, which is easily the most impressive feature of the ground: there are around 14 steps of terracing, of which 11 are covered. While I imagine it would be more limited with a truly bumper crowd, views were generally excellent yesterday, with only a few supporting pillars in the way.
The ground now has an overall capacity of 5,000, but the record attendance at the ground was 7,800 for a cup game against Wimbledon in 1959.
Photos
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