Lobsters in the pot

My FA Cup Preliminary Round ‘double’ at the weekend was Sevenoaks v Redhill (1-3) on Saturday and Lingfield v Fisher (4-1) on Sunday. My first-ever match was a First Round Proper tie between Crystal Palace v Hitchin Town back in 1960 – or was it 1860? – and I’ve now attended 389 matches in our world-famous competition.

Saturday may well have been our last really warm day of the summer and it was a 40-minute walk from Sevenoaks station to Greatness Park with no shade on either side. Redhill, the visitors, were a team that I supported in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – even to the extent of watching them both home and away. I saw them win the Surrey Senior Cup once and the Athenian League Cup twice.

The ‘Reds’, now the ‘Lobsters’, have only reached The Cup’s First Round Proper on one occasion, going down 6-1 at Norwich 54 years ago. They did manage an appearance in the Fourth Qualifying Round in ’72, drawing 0-0 at the old Hillingdon Borough and losing 1-0 in the replay before 959 fans at the Memorial Sports Ground. I wore a Southampton shirt – Redhill played in red and white stripes – for the replay.

The ‘Lobsters’ – well, they would’ve been in that heat – could’ve been 3-0 up as they dominated possession in the first ten minutes or so on Saturday. But the first time Sevenoaks put an attack together they scored. How often that happens. The home ‘keeper spilled a couple of shots for Redhill to lead early in the second period and a penalty wrapped things up at 3-1. The walk back to the station felt like it was uphill – but the walk from the station had too.

The weather could hardly have been more different yesterday. It rained for an hour and a half before kick-off and for the whole of the first half at Whyteleafe FC’s Church Road ground, the venue because Lingfield share with cricket. I got there five minutes before the 1.30 start, fully expecting them to have run out of programmes. They hadn’t – but the 14 pages included eight pages of adverts, two blank pages and a page listing Committee members.

Lingfield, in red and yellow stripes, had two interesting players in Ian Pearce and Nicky Forster. They’ve both been capped for England’s Under-21s. Pearce has played for Chelsea, Blackburn, West Ham, Fulham and Lincoln. Forster has turned out for Gillingham, Brentford, Birmingham, Reading, Ipswich, Hull and Brighton. The latter managed Brentford for a while last season.

It was a terrific Cup-tie, covered by FATV. Lingfield netted with an early penalty for hands, my fifth spot-kick in the last four matches, and Fisher levelled before the break with the most perfect headed goal you could ever see. Chatting to a pal at half-time, I suggested the visitors would go on to win having had more of the chances. As usual I was completely wrong, Lingfield scoring three times to send their fans behind the goal into raptures.

More and more these days you see female physios. The one for Fisher, ‘Ally’, is obviously very good at her job. A player was flat out in the box after taking a blow to the face and she sorted him out in seconds. Then she gave a friendly wink to a chap in a wheelchair as she made her way back to the dugout. What a nice lady.