Knaphill FC
Redding Way
Knaphill
Woking
Surrey
GU21 7AY
Ground: 99
Date: Saturday 23rd November 2019
Knaphill 4-1 Badshot Lea
Combined Counties League Premier Division
Attendance: 74 (official)
Knaphill - History
Knaphill were founded in 1924 and initially played in the Surrey Intermediate League, winning the title in the 1935/36 season. By the 1970s, the club had moved on to the Woking & District League. In the 1978/79 season, the club completed a treble by winning the Premier Division, the League Cup and the Charity Cup. They only finished as runners-up the following season, but still completed a treble by retaining the League Cup and the Charity Cup and also winning the Challenge Cup.
After this, the club joined the Surrey County Intermediate League (Western), being placed in Division 3 and winning it at the first attempt to move up to Division 2. The club then finished as Division 2 runners-up the following season (the 1981/82 season) to earn promotion to Division 1, before then finishing as runners-up at Division 1 level too.
The 2005/06 season saw the club win the Division 1 title to earn promotion to the Premier Division. After then going on to win the Premier Division title, the club earned promotion to Division 1 of the Combined Counties League for the 2007/08 season. The club spent seven seasons at this level before a 3rd-place finish in the 2013/14 season was enough to earn promotion to the Premier Division. The club have remained there ever since, recording a highest finish of 5th in the 2015/16 season.
In the FA Cup, the club's best run came in the 2017/18 season when they reached the 2nd Qualifying Round, beating Bournemouth FC, Laverstock & Ford and Guildford City before losing to Bath City. As for the FA Vase, the club progressed to the 4th Round in the 2015/16 season, beating Lydney Town, Cray Valley Paper Mills, Tunbridge Wells and Canterbury City before losing to Kidlington.
My Visit
Compared to the last month or so of groundhopping, the decision-making process behind this one was as simple as they come. Given that Christmas is already straining my finances, I had to stay as local as possible, even more so if I want to get somewhere more special next Saturday for my 100th groundhop.
My most local option on this front was Farnham Town, so I set that as first choice quite a while back, though I made sure to have some back-ups in mind as I know their pitch doesn't always drain well after rain. And, as is becoming a common trend of late, the rain did come again this week, though not until just before the weekend (almost as if I am being messed with by the universe itself).
With all that in mind, one of the first things that I did when I woke up this morning was check the weather forecasts in the areas of my five non-3G options, as well as all the train timings (so as to see how long I could leave it before making my final decision). As it turned out, the forecast wasn't as bad as I had expected in terms of rain, so I soon found myself confident enough to disregard all my options besides this and Farnham.
This gave me leeway until around 12:30pm to make my final decision, so I was able to relax for a while, keeping an eye on the clubs' respective Twitters for any updates. For a while, the situation was that Knaphill's game seemed to be going ahead (based on both themselves and Badshot Lea tweeting about the match with no mention of a pitch inspection), whereas Farnham's pitch was fine but could change depending on the severity of the forecasted rain.
In the end, my decision was made when Knaphill confirmed that the match was definitely on, as the slight uncertainty over Farnham was enough for me to opt to play it safe (as usual, it turned out I was overthinking it, as the match ended up going ahead and finishing despite the weather). This meant I ordered my tickets at 12:30pm after having my lunch, before then leaving the house half an hour later.
The train journey to Brookwood wasn't too difficult, though a slight delay initially meant I had to run to make my connection at Woking. The train arrived in Brookwood at 1:55pm and I began my walk to the ground, having to ignore Google Maps' suggestions to walk through a cemetery and a country park due to both seeming very indirect and impractical. However, the adjustments to my route meant it took longer than planned to get to the ground, as I arrived half an hour later.
Upon arrival, I paid £7 for admission and £1 for a golden goal ticket (I really don't know why I bother with these, if I'm entirely honest) before starting my usual circuit of photos as the rain started to fall. With ten minutes to go before kick-off and the rain already worsening, I headed into the clubhouse and paid a surprisingly-cheap £2.50 for a burger, before heading back out into the rain to take a seat in one of the two seated stands. In the second half, I moved across to the other side and stood beneath the covered area closest to the exit.
Looking at the table, there didn't seem to be that much between the two sides. However, the form guides showed that Knaphill's recent form was far better than Badshot's, so I was expecting Knaphill to possibly come out on top in an overall close contest.
Here's my report on a match which saw Knaphill dominate and deservedly claim victory amidst torrential rainfall:
This match took quite a while to really get going, with the first 20-25 minutes being almost completely uneventful. As the half-hour mark approached, Knaphill began to take control and had the first noteworthy chance in the 22nd minute, Carlo Santoro's audacious shot from the edge of the box forcing a fine save out of Badshot keeper Kallum Lunn. Then, in the 31st minute, the home side took the lead through a Perry Coles shot from the edge of the box.
After this, the rest of the half saw Knaphill dominate, besieging the Badshot goal with chance after chance and trapping them in their own half. In the 33rd minute, Jack French drilled a deep free kick into the box and Kane Fitzgerald sent it into the post with an acrobatic volley. Three minutes later, French turned one defender and dribbled past another before shooting low and narrowly wide. In the 41st minute, Coles latched onto a French through ball in the box, but Lunn pushed the shot wide for a corner. Despite their domination, the home side couldn't extend their lead, so it remained 1-0 at half-time.
After having a torrid time at the end of the first half, Badshot would have hoped to make a better start to the second half. However, any hopes of that appeared to evaporate after two minutes when Santoro made it 2-0: he picked up a misplaced pass just outside the box and smashed a powerful shot into the crossbar and then the net. Despite this early setback, Badshot quickly regained their composure and were able to reduce Knaphill to fewer chances. At the same time, a couple of early substitutions saw the away side gain some attacking momentum for the first time, culminating in a penalty on the hour mark. Initially, the referee had given Badshot a free kick on the edge of the Knaphill box, but after talking to the linesman he instead gave the penalty. Lionel Masudi stepped up and scored.
Though the penalty had given Badshot a lifeline, their overall approach of favouring the long ball did not change and Knaphill continued to take advantage, with Coles again coming close to scoring in the 63rd minute after being able to dribble into the box and shoot narrowly over. Seven minutes later, Knaphill had a penalty of their own after a player was pushed over as a free kick was played into the box: French stepped up and restored the home side's two-goal lead.
The intensity of the match dropped after this, with Knaphill still largely in control but less willing to attack. However, deep into stoppage time substitute Calvin Camara made it 4-1 with a great solo finish: he picked up the ball on the left wing and dribbled past several players into the box, before placing a low shot beyond Lunn into the bottom corner. This proved to be the final chance of the game, as the referee blew for full-time immediately after the kick-off.
Overall, this was an unusual match, with a tepid opening 20-25 minutes followed by large stretches of Knaphill dominating against a Badshot Lea side whose only idea seemed to be to hit the ball long and hope for the best; Knaphill dealt with that with ease and sliced Badshot open time and time again. This made for a reasonably entertaining contest, but it would have been more so if Badshot had been able to do more besides scoring the penalty (I'm reasonably sure that was their only chance, or one of their only chances) in the entire match). That aside, the club seemed friendly enough, so it was an enjoyable day out despite yet more rain.
On the journey back, I wanted to get back a little earlier (so that I would have time to finish this tonight and focus on my essay tomorrow) so I had to run some of the way back to make the 5:15pm train from Brookwood to Woking and just about managed to do so. I then had to move quickly to make my connection back to Guildford, which meant I arrived back in Guildford at around 5:30pm and made it back to the house 20 minutes later.
I'm not sure what the plan for my 100th groundhop next Saturday is. I was hoping to go to Maidenhead United, but it may not be affordable to do so when taking my future groundhopping plans into account. If that proves to be the case, I'll end up sticking local and heading to Farnborough, or somewhere like that.
The Ground
Redding Way is a decent Step 5 ground, with slightly more character than the average at this level. As is the norm, there are two 50-seater Arena stands at the ground, one on the far side and one behind the near goal, just beyond the clubhouse. Each of these are further away from the pitch than is normally the case, which does somewhat limit their usefulness for viewing the match.
There are also three areas of standing cover on the near side of the ground: two of these are identical structures (one each side of the dugouts), while the structure in the middle is a smaller area of cover that lacks sides or a back. Each of these can likely provide standing cover for around 50 or so people. There's also a small area of cover in front of the clubhouse thanks to an overhang from the clubhouse roof.
That aside, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, though the area behind the far goal lacks hard standing and is hence out of bounds for spectators. The ground has an overall capacity of 1,000, with a record attendance of 323 for a league game against Guernsey in 2011.
Photos
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