You will have to excuse the slightly cynical, confrontational tone at the start of this article but I have just watched us outplay Reading for large parts of the game only for our poor finishing at times, their inspired defending and our poor defending to consign us to a ridiculously unfair 4-1 defeat. We play some nice football and dominate play, which is admirable, but please, just bloody win a game!

A popular topic amongst top-level players and managers these days is about too much football played, as their clubs book yet another lucrative overseas friendly, or the super-rich Champions League add a level of complexity and more matches to the schedule, while trying to kill off competitions such as the FA Cup which they don’t even take seriously – in the early rounds anyway.

Come on! Playing a couple of times a week with squad rotation, resting players for domestic cups, all the while pampering them with state-of-the-art pitches, diets, therapists, nutritionists and first-class travel, not to mention massive salaries and other perks does not sound too gruelling to me.

I am sure it must be a really tough life, but as a footballing dinosaur I look back to days such as those towards the end of the 1963/64 season, our first in the Southern League. At the time we also ran a reserve side in the Metropolitan League amongst the ‘A’ teams of some of the big clubs such as Spurs, West Ham and Arsenal. It is this competition I am looking back at briefly as I have a copy of the programme for 25^th April 1964 when we played away at Woodford Town at their exotically names Snakes Lane ground (some years later they ground-shared with Clapton at their Old Spotted Dog ground!).

25th April 1964 Two Games on Same Day at Woodford Town

When I first saw the single-page programme, there appeared to be nothing exceptional, but then I noticed the text and found that this was actually going to be a double header, with the second game kicking off at 5pm, and that game to allow multiple substitutes (in pre-substitute days). Bearing in mind the state of the Town Meadow pitch, our end-of-season schedule was always very demanding as we tried to fit in postponed matches, and with reserves as well. I can imagine the squad for these games was pretty small and meant a lot of minutes for many of those shown in the programme. All that for a pair of defeats (7-1 and 2-1) – and not a nutritionist, luxury coach or ice bath in sight. Ahh, the good old days!

Clutching at straws a bit with our current desperate run, but at the start of the Scott Lindsey reign in January/February 2022 we did lose seven of the next eight games after he had started with a 3-2 win over Salford City. As many will recall we eventually dragged ourselves out of the mire towards the end of that season, and last season went pretty well, didn’t it? Hopefully we can replicate those circumstances, starting with a win over Lincoln City this week and then get something out of the game at Northampton.

Of course then we have the FA Cup to look forward to (my favourite competition), and despite the Premier League and Championship clubs doing their best to sideline it, it still has some magic for us old-school football romantics in the first few rounds, having given us some of our best experiences watching the Red Devils.

Unfortunately it has also given us a few (actually quite a few) memories we would rather forget. I can remember one of my all-time highs, a 4-2 home win over next week’s opponents Northampton in the first round proper on 16^th November 1991 (Tim Hulme, Cliff Cant and Craig Whitington).

1991 FA Cup 1st Rnd. 4-2 win over Northampton, Obby headline

This was followed on 7^th December 1991 by an even bigger high when, in the second round proper, we won 2-0 at Hayes in front of over 2,000 travelling fans (watch the YouTube highlights of our win, with some fine football and that late second goal in front of our massed fans – magic stuff!). Our team that year was managed by Brian Sparrow (who sadly died on 6^th December 2019, the eve of the 28^th anniversary of that epic win), and as a result of the win, Brian (after a quick dip in the bath with his team) found himself as star guest on that evening’s Match of the Day programme, which also included the draw for the third round.

Brian Sparrow bathing

Brian Sparrow later on MOTD

Unfortunately the draw – and subsequent third round defeat – at Brighton was definitely an all-time FA Cup low, for me, anyway. Thankfully, though, Brighton’s fans at the time were not as self-entitled and insufferable as some of them are today, and we were able to laugh at the worst shorts ever seen on a footballer, but it didn’t help much.

BHA action shot those shorts

Of course there are some big highlights I haven’t mentioned, such as Derby County (also in my top five along with Hayes and Northampton), Manchester United, and our biggest one of all, thrashing Premier League Leeds at Broadfield. Sadly, because the Leeds match was during lockdown and we all had to watch it on TV, played in a pretty much empty stadium, it doesn’t have quite the same magic as it could have.

Having said that, it is still worth a picture, and obviously it has to be Nick Tsaroulla outpacing England International Kalvin Phillips to score the best goal of the game (the other two from Ashley Nadesan and Jordan Tunnicliffe).

Tsaroulla Outpacing Phillips to Score v Leeds United

Of course there are always lows that we try to erase from the memory or use to help us enjoy the less frequent highs, and over the years there have been any number of defeats in the FA Cup to counter those magic memories mentioned above.

From my earlier years there was a 2-0 loss at home to Lewes Rangers in the third qualifying round in 1963/4, our first Southern League season. Then in the following two seasons, after battling through to the fourth qualifying round, we were favourites to beat both Canterbury City (lost 3-0 – see picture of our young travelling support including Alain Harper and one or two others still around) and Gravesend and Northfleet (lost 1-0), even though both were away games

1964/5 Canterbury away FA Cup Enthusiastic Support

The next year, 1966, saw a third qualifying round exit after two replays against Eastbourne United, with the second replay at Horsham littered with terrible refereeing decisions and even a player’s mum’s attempting to accost the referee on the pitch with an umbrella!

We succumbed away to Chichester City 1-0 the next season at the same stage, and after losing out to the original Wimbledon after two replays in 1969/70, it would be 1970/71 before we finally reached the first round, only to draw another non-league club in Chelmsford City. Having said that, at the time they were certainly of Football League standard and thrashed us 6-1 in the replay at New Writtle Street after a 1-1 draw at Town Meadow.

A Football League opponent was finally secured the next season in Exeter City after we had disposed of all-Sussex opposition in the previous rounds in the form of Eastbourne (4-0), East Grinstead (3-0), Horsham (3-1) and Hastings United (0-0 and 3-2). Sadly, after almost winning at Town Meadow in the first match (0-0) we would lose the replay at St James Park 2-0, although this was far from a low as we performed superbly on the night and even now I can definitely say their first goal was from a corner that should never have been given!

Things got pretty ugly for us at times in the financially troubled 1970s, with an abject loss at Ringmer in a second qualifying round replay in the 1974/5 season probably the worst, although the next season brought more shame, albeit at a higher level. We had fought through to the fourth qualifying round in 1975/76, beating Hastings United (2-1), Ashford Town (4-1) and Redhill after a replay (1-1 away and 1-0 at home in a game with the kick-off delayed to allow a surprisingly large crowd to get in to Town Meadow). Our fourth qualifying round opponents were high-flying Dover and I think we even surprised ourselves, both in managing to reach that round and in holding them to a 0-0 draw at home. Sadly that was as good as it got as we succumbed to a 6-0 thrashing in the replay to ensure a very sombre journey home for us Red Devils fans.

Through the 1980s, with John Maggs our manager, we had decent spells of success in the Southern League but several lows in the FA Cup including 1981/82 losing 1-0 at home to Burgess Hill of the County League in the first qualifying round, 1985/86 losing 3-2 at home to Leyton-Wingate, and 1987/88 losing 3-1 at home to Chatham Town in another early qualifying round exit.

January 2012 1-0 Win at Hull City

So the motto is to treasure those highs and see the defeats (such as that travesty at Reading on Saturday!) as character-building moments that make the highs when they come that much sweeter. And on that note I will end with a local newspaper picture from one of the less heralded of our many recent giant killings, when we went to high-flying Championship side Hull City in January 2012 and beat them 1-0 (Matt Tubbs) in front of a huge away following. Savour the image of the players saluting the travelling fans: that’s what a run in the FA Cup can do!

Mick Fox – mjfjo@yahoo.co.uk