Potton United - The Hutchinson Hollow

Potton United FC
The Hutchinson Hollow
Biggleswade Road
Potton
Bedfordshire
SG19 2LU

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Ground: 116
Date: Saturday 4th September 2021
Potton United 0-1 AFC Sudbury
FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round
Attendance: 211 (official)

Potton United - History

Potton United were founded in 1943 and joined the South Midlands League after the conclusion of World War 2. After finishing as runners-up at the end of the 1954/55 season, the club left the league and applied to instead join the Parthenon League. However, this application was rejected and the club had to sit out a season before joining Division 1 South of the Central Alliance League. In 1961, the club left this league to join Division 1 of the United Counties League.

The club remained at this level for the next 40 years, with the division being renamed the Premier Division in 1972. For roughly the first 30 of these 40 years, the club mostly finished in the top half of the table, including two title wins in the 1986/87 and 1988/89 seasons. However, the years following that second title saw the club start to slip into bottom half finishes more consistently, finishing bottom of the league in the 1998/99 season. Though the club were spared relegation in this instance, they were not so lucky when they finished second-from-bottom two seasons later.

The club made a swift return to Premier Division level, winning the Division 1 title in their third season at that level in 2004. Their first two seasons back in the Premier Division saw the club finish as runners-up, but fortunes quickly took a turn for the worse and they were relegated back to Division 1 at the end of the 2008/09 season. The club then remained in Division 1 until finishing as runners-up in the 2017/18 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division of the Spartan South Midlands League. The club finished a respectable 7th-place in their first season back at this level, before being transferred to the newly-formed United Counties League Premier Division South for the current season after the covid-enforced curtailment of the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons.

The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 3rd Qualifying Round in the 1974/75 season, beating Biggleswade & District and Irthlingborough Diamonds before losing to Bedford Town. In the FA Trophy, the club reached the 3rd Qualifying Round in both the 1971/72 and 1972/73 seasons, losing to Bexley United on both occasions. As for the FA Vase, the club reached the 5th Round in the 1989/90 season, beating Cheshunt, Finchley, Norwich United, Stevenage Borough and Hastings Town before losing to Billericay Town.

My Visit

With three weeks having passed between this and my previous groundhop, I'd had a lot of time to think about my plans for where I wanted to go next. My original plan had been to head to Hitchin Town on the train on Bank Holiday Monday, having had a blank Saturday last weekend as I went to see my grandparents for the first time in 18+ months instead. However, after dealing with big crowds on the train for that, I was a bit less keen to go and brave the Bank Holiday crowds again on the Monday.

Even before that plan was thrown by the wayside, I was planning to head somewhere in the FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round. Initially, I was hoping to head to Royston Town with Yaxley, but we lost our replay to lower-league Mildenhall Town to miss out on that. After that, I drew up a shortlist of options I could do on the train as well as some I could ask for a lift to. Royston Town would have fit the bill on both fronts, but seeing as it wasn't going to be Yaxley heading there I opted to rule it out. This left me with three options I could ask for a lift to (this, Anstey Nomads and Leicester Road) and four options feasible on the train (Bury Town, Enfield Town, Sherwood Colliery and Worksop Town).

Last weekend, it became apparent that I would be able to get a lift somewhere this weekend, so I passed the list of options to my mum with Google Maps links attached to help her decide. On Friday evening, she confirmed that this was where we would be heading, so I started to do my research for the blog to save some time today (in fact, this is going to be the approach going forward in cases where I've made a definitive decision in advance).

Yesterday morning, I woke up with no concerns about the weather possibly causing a postponement, so I went about my day as normal before we left the house at around 1:45pm. For whatever reason, the sat nav in my stepdad's new car decided to lead us down a very circuitous route to Potton, rather than just heading straight down the A1. While this meant we saw some very nice views along the way, it did mean we didn't arrive into the town of Potton until just after 2:30pm. On top of that, we missed the turn into the football ground and lost a few more minutes as a result of trying to find somewhere to turn around (to be fair, it's very easily missed even if you are fully paying attention).

As a result, I didn't get into the ground until 2:40pm, paying £6 for admission and then rushing to do my circuit of photos before kick-off. Once that was done, I ordered a cheeseburger from the tea bar immediately next to the entrance (for £2.50, it was quite a large burger) and then walked back down to the far side of the ground to watch the match. Normally, I'd prefer to take a seat in the stand, but the fact that it was almost completely full and that the sun was shining directly into it meant the idea didn't quite appeal in this case.

At this point, the teams were coming out for the usual pre-match routines and I snapped a poor photo of that before taking off my jumper (it was a fair bit warmer than I had anticipated it being) and starting to eat my burger. I remained where I was standing throughout the match, other than when I headed into the clubhouse to find the toilets during an extended stoppage caused by a head injury. After this, I remained standing behind the near goal until the full-time whistle.

While it does still feel a tad early into the season to be checking out league tables, I figured I'd do so anyway to gain a more informed understanding of what to expect from this cup fixture. Even before doing so, my expectation was that Step 4 AFC Sudbury would likely have too much for Step 5 Potton, and seeing that Sudbury had made an unbeaten start to their league campaign only reinforced that view. Still, the FA Cup always throws out plenty of upsets so there was a small part of me hoping Potton could pull one off.

The first half was one of few chances as both teams probed for an opening, but Sudbury should have been in front after 21 minutes when Marley Andrews was put through one-on-one after a quick breakaway on the counter. However, he lacked composure and sliced his effort wide of goal. There were a few more half chances that followed as Sudbury gradually started to take control, but it remained goalless going into half-time.

Potton made a good start to the second half, but were unable to make it count with any noteworthy chances. After weathering that brief storm, Sudbury started to up the pressure again but struggled to break through a stubborn Potton defence, with Callum Wilson in particular getting in some vital defensive blocks to keep the score goalless. However, as the minutes continued to tick by, the match started to open up a little as both teams had to actively chase a goal and Sudbury almost had the lead in the 72nd minute when a header hit the crossbar and bounced down into the box before being scrambled clear by a defender.

As we approached the end of normal time, it looked like this match would be heading for a replay, but Sudbury's Tyrese Osbourne had other ideas and scored the match's only goal in the 89th minute: after a quick counter ended with a shot into the crossbar, Ethan Mayhew played a ball over his head back into the six-yard box and Osbourne was there at the far post to poke it in. Potton used the eight minutes of injury time to send the ball forwards and try and produce an equaliser, but to no avail as Sudbury held on to progress.

This was a cagey, closely-contested match that honestly provided little entertainment for the neutral. Potton ran their higher-level opponents close, but they never really looked like scoring when they were able to get forward. Sudbury had the better of the play and did create more chances, but it was far closer than I expected and a goalless draw probably would have been a fair result.

To be honest, this was probably one of my least enjoyable groundhopping experiences in quite some time, partially because the match was rather low on entertainment value but also because of the attitude of some Potton "ultras" behind the near goal. Usually, such groups provide an atmosphere and support their team with chants, drums and so on, but these did none of that (they banged the drum maybe 5 times in the entire match). Instead, they spent the match hurling abuse at the Sudbury players, supporters and coaching staff as well as to the occasional passerby (myself included). I'm sure the club are friendly on the whole, but that group really reflects badly on them and put a bit of a damper on the day (and my feelings about that probably enhanced my disappointment with the match itself).

Due to the extended stoppage for a head injury in the second half, there was eight minutes of stoppage time and so the match didn't finish until almost 5pm. When it did finish, I was picked up again in the car park and we headed back home. This time, the sat nav took the more logical route up the A1 to get back and so we got back into the house at around 6pm, after taking a detour so my stepdad could pick something up. While waiting for dinner, I sorted out my photos and wrote up my match report, before checking on some other results in the FA Cup and Football League.

As it stands, I'm waiting on tomorrow's FA Cup draw to finalise my remaining groundhopping plans for this month. Whatever happens, I'm going somewhere in the FA Vase on the train next Saturday and then somewhere significantly further afield than normal on the 18th. I'm currently looking at Atherstone Town as first-choice next Saturday and then a long trip towards Manchester on the 18th to visit Daisy Hill. However, that will change if Nantwich Town get a home draw in the FA Cup against a team not in their own league, or if something else really catches my eye in the FA Cup draw.

The Ground

The Hutchinson Hollow is a decent ground by Step 5 standards, with a 150-seater brick-built stand on the near side being the ground's most notable feature. The only other area of cover at the ground is a small Arena terrace behind the near goal which provides standing cover for around 50 people.

Other than this, the rest of the ground is open hard standing save for a few benches behind the near goal and one next to the main stand. The clubhouse and tea bar are both situated behind the near goal and the latter provides a good mix of hot food options. A cricket pitch is located behind the far goal.

Photos