The king has had his coronation, now let’s have the Sutton summation…
With Sutton just one point off the play-offs in March, we might have been heading down to London on Saturday, but the U’s ended their season without a win in their last 11
Thursday 11 May 2023
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and any Sutton supporters joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Thursday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore.
I haven’t got the will to go anywhere near the Salford ticketing debate today. Needless to say, I sincerely hope the 536 tickets have ended up in deserving hands, and in addition to that, I hope those County fans queuing from 3am earlier manage to get a good night’s sleep tonight. I doff my cap to you all.
We’ve got all the Salford build-up coming over the next couple of days. Today, though, our 2022-23 season review continues, with a load of stuff on Sutton United courtesy of Dan from the superb Gandermonium website.
Finally, a big thank you to Dave from DC Plastering for sponsoring today’s edition. Dave’s a talented chap, as you can see from the County badge he created from Venetian plaster for one of his customers. Get in touch if you’d like him to create one for you.
Enjoy today’s issue.
Des Junior
Had King Charles invited you to his coronation celebrations, and insisted you brought him the best food you’d experienced inside a League Two ground this season, what would you have treated him to?
Nothing from Grimsby that’s for sure. Cheeky bastards spent the week before our game up there trumpeting on the socials what an amazing foodie paradise the place was for football fans. Sadly, it turned out that was for the home end only and us away end peasants got donkey dick hot dogs instead. And literally nothing else. Shite.
As for good stuff though, we’re taking Carlisle’s Scotch pies (bastards ran out before half-time this season!) and the pizza I had at our place, ironically, before the Grimsby home game. Nice mix of cuisines there.
Charles is now king of the UK. But who would you choose to be crowned king of Gander Green Lane, and who would be locked up in the tower? You can pick anybody who’s had some sort of connection with the club this season.
Tough one this after a fairly run-of-the-mill season. King would have to be skipper and player of the year Craig Eastmond. Class player and a huge part of keeping our midfield ticking, especially in that absolute slog before Christmas with so many injuries. His absence in the run-in has been glaringly obvious on the pitch and in our results.
In the tower would have to be most of our summer signings. The majority have either been jogged on in January, loaned out, or have probably played more minutes for Malta than us this season. Must do better on that front next year. Much, much better.
Best moment of 2022-23?
In a season that’s been a bit of a slog, the two wins over the Wombles in the first couple of games we’ve played for league points stand out. We’d passed each other by in non-league and they largely see us as this quaint little amateur outfit they have fond memories of, after giving them their first game. So the meltdown after we won 1-0 there with a properly patched-up side was as funny as it was bemusing and it should have been three or four too. They then went 10 unbeaten off the back of the “Ploughlanazo”, before coming to us on New Year’s Day and getting turned over again. Sorry lads!
Worst moment of 2022-23?
Jon Barden’s broken leg at Stevenage. Made worse by the fact he did it colliding with a teammate. He’s not a superstar, but he’s a solid pro and can play about three positions for us, so it was a blow to an already stretched side.
Getting giant-killed by Farnborough in the FA Cup at home was crap as well. Everyone knew what was coming after we went in 0-0 at half-time having battered them for 45 minutes, but like many games this season, couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a shovel.
Funniest moment of 2022-23?
Probably Crawley’s incredible corner routine on Boxing Day. Which subsequently went viral thanks to us putting out the clip of it the next day. It looked hilarious at the time from the other end of the ground, but the video was just beautiful. Also made a change for us to not being on the receiving end of the comedy shit football footage.
Four Four Two said you’d finish 15th. When Saturday Comes said you’d finish 12th. You finished 14th. Discuss.
To be honest, it’s about right given the season overall, but 9th/10th looked the bare minimum in March with us just one point off the play-offs having lost just once in 14 games after Christmas. Unfortunately, we followed that up by failing to win any of our last 11 games of the season. Conceding a shit 95th minute equaliser at Walsall knocked the stuffing out of us and having grafted our nuts off before Christmas, another raft of injuries and illness was just too much for the squad to overcome a second time.
The main aim however, like last year, was to stay up. So job done. Could it have been better? Yeah, maybe. But that’s football sometimes.
County 3 Sutton 0 in October. Sutton 0 County 1 in April. Thoughts?
The away game was a complete waste of everyone’s time as the red card after three minutes made it a pointless defence versus attack exercise.
The return at GGL was competitive but largely went as we expected against a side in decent form and going for promotion. Like a lot of games against the top seven this season, we competed reasonably well, but lacked attacking edge and wound up on the wrong side of a narrow loss. No real complaints there.
Best and worst away days of 2022-23?
If you ignore the game, the best was probably Doncaster way back in August. The perfect example of a cracking day out and great laugh spoilt by the football. Lead until the 90th minute having dominated. Lost 2-1.
If you want to talk football (you weirdos), then Newport was a perfect away win. Ahead early, defended well, and nicked a second on the break with 25 to go. Lovely stuff.
Worst was probably Stevenage. Midweek, we got pumped, and lost Jon Barden to that horribly broken leg I mentioned earlier. The night kind of summed up where we were at, at that point in the season. Hardworking, but utterly toothless and getting no luck at all injury-wise.
After decades travelling around the world, Sir David Attenborough’s most recent BBC documentary covered Great Britain. Let’s imagine David and his crew have been filming Sutton fans throughout the 2022-23 season. In that famous voice of his, how would he describe them?
Those poor camera crews. Jesus. There’d be some therapy needed after that assignment. Anyway, I digress. It would probably go something like: “It seems to me that West Sutton is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living, and… for fuck’s sake, they’ve let in another last gasper to some load of old pony and bollocksed my acca again. Cheers lads. Cost me 1200 quid that has. Wankers.”
With Wrexham up and MK Dons down, there’s a couple of teams coming into League Two who generally cause quite a lot of debate wherever they go. You’re on Moonpig.com buying a welcome card for both of them. What messages are going inside?
In true WSC season preview style, we’d not bother with MK. We went there in the Energy Drink Cup this year and the whole thing’s just a waste of time really. They could have pumped money into Milton Keynes City in the Southern League and probably got just as high as this with as much support and everyone not thinking they’re wankers.
As for Wrexham: “You’re that one off the telly aren’t you? Can we have your autograph?”
Get the County badge plastered in your home
This is pretty cool, isn’t it? Dave from Stockport-based DC Plastering provides internal and external plastering services for private customers and commercial businesses. And as you can see, he’s a dab hand at taking on special requests as well. One of Dave’s recent customers was delighted with this County badge he created.
It’s made from Venetian plaster, an Italian product made from plaster and marble dust. The County badge took around 11 hours from start to finish, and was completed over a few days with the drying process and the painting of the individual colours. If you think this would look good in your home, or if you need any general plastering services, give Dave a call.
Click here for contact details.
Today in SK
🍻 Going out for a beer tonight? You can get two bottles of Budweiser for £6 at the Dog & Partridge (SK2).
🎶 There’s free jukebox at the Nelson Tavern (SK1) from 6.30pm.
Never mind Google or Yell.com, we’ve got you covered
STOP! That got your attention, didn’t it? Just a quick one… I’d hazard a guess that at some point in May, all of our readers will use Google or Yell.com at some point looking for a particular product or service. But before you do, please have a quick look at our own directory to see if we have what you’re looking for. A number of great businesses support The Scarf My Father Wore, allowing us to publish fresh content every day, so let’s send a few enquiries their way in return.
Click here to have a look at all the businesses in our directory.
Photo of the day
Edgeley Park
Having big 90s flashbacks today, seeing County fans queue through the night for play-off tickets. Fair play to all involved.