Thursday, September 3, 2020

MATCH 1: Going Back Again, Alone: Walthamstow vs. London Lions

 

Walthamstow 3 London Lions 2 (FA Cup extra preliminary qualifying round)
Wadham Lodge, 1 September 2020

I hadn’t intended for Walthamstow to host my cautious but long-awaited return to live football, but under normal circumstances, I probably would never have come to Wadham Lodge at all. But as we all know, these are not normal circumstances, and I'd usually start my season at Carrow Road, Norwich in early August. My 2020-21 would begin on 1 September in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Qualifying Round, long before anyone from England’s top two divisions got involved; the first team I looked for when deciding where to go was Horley Town. Opening there would have felt especially appropriate as I spent three months of lockdown back in my childhood home with my family, but they were away at Eastbourne, too far from my east London home for a Tuesday night – itself deeply unnatural, as the Cup feels even more synonymous with Saturdays than the league.

After scouring the fixtures, regionalised at this stage, my first choice had been Clapton, even though the club’s anti-fascist Ultras split recently with the owner to form Clapton Community FC, getting custody over ‘London’s oldest senior football ground’ at The Old Spotted Dog. My friend Andi, a football writer who I met through the then-fertile blogging scene in 2010, planned to join me, but at 11.15am, Clapton FC said there had been an ‘11th-hour announcement from Terence Mcmillan Stadium that no spectators will be allowed at tonight’s FA Cup match against @SportingBengal’, adding ‘GUTTED!’  and ‘#MeddlesomeForcesAtWork’ for good measure. I thought about travelling to Redhill (where I was born, but who I’ve never seen play) but their website said that due to a fixture pile-up caused by Covid-19, they had forfeited their tie against Egham Town. (As an aside, it amuses me that Redhill’s local rivals, Reigate Priory, proudly state that they entered the first FA Cup competition in 1871, but not that they scratched their first-round fixture. I don’t think it was pandemic-related.)

After checking for something else that might work, Andi wrote to say, ‘I have never heard of Glebe and have trouble believing it’s a real place, but I can get there in about an hour. It is proper South East though, so no worries if it’s a complete hassle for you.’ His route would involve a 20-minute walk from his house, a 15-minute train journey and then another 20-minute bus ride; mine would need 35 minutes on the Overground on top of that. Then I saw that Walthamstow were at home to a team I didn’t know, called Maccabi London Lions (presumably a Jewish side, sharing their prefix with a number of Israeli clubs), and suggested that instead. Childcare commitments meant Andi couldn’t get to north-east London in time for kick-off, so we agreed to go to Balham together the next evening instead. But I’d got it into my head that this would be the night I returned to football, though, so decided to book for it anyway.

The last game I went to was in the Cup, six months ago: a thrilling 3-2 penalty shoot-out win after a 1-1 draw at Tottenham that put Norwich into the quarter-finals, ending a miserable run of going out in or (usually) before the fifth round that stretched back to 1992, during which time Norwich became the first (and, as yet, only) Premier League club to get knocked out by a non-League side. I’d had such a powerful mix of emotions, feeling that I shouldn’t be going at all, after following the Covid-19 news closely online, and yet being unable to resist buying a ticket for the sold-out match on the day. The freezing cold and pouring rain heightened my anxieties, as I already had a cough that I didn’t think was the virus, but couldn’t be sure. But I forgot my vague sense of doom (to which, admittedly, I'm more prone than most other football fans I know) as soon as I was in the 58,000 crowd and the match began, climaxing in Tim Krul’s penalty saves to put the club I’d supported since the early Nineties within two wins of the final. (Indeed, one of the first Norwich matches I remember is the desperately disappointing 1992 semi-final, a limp 1-0 defeat to Sunderland, then in the Second Division.)

I spoke excitedly about the match to an old friend the next day, but by the time the quarter-final came around, I felt completely differently about (the relaunched) professional football. Norwich had never reached the Final, and I hated the thought of them doing so when I couldn’t go with my friends. I was almost relieved when they went out to Manchester United, and sad that I felt this way – I would have preferred football not to restart until fans were let back in, so thoroughly did the behind-closed-doors set-up break my bond with my club.

The intensity of that Spurs game was retroactively amplified by its sense of finality. For some time, we had no idea when football might return, fans or not – an indefinite suspension for which the most recent precedent was the start of the Second World War. After this crescendo – and cataclysm – it felt appropriate to me to begin again at the lowest level, but this was mandated in any case: whilst all English football has resumed, with every 2019-20 competition that wasn’t cancelled having belatedly concluded, fans are only currently admitted to clubs below Step 4 – the ninth tier – in grounds at less than 30% of capacity and even then, as Clapton found out, only if all the relevant parties think it safe.

So it was that I came to watch Walthamstow against London Lions on my own. I haven’t been to a Norwich match alone for over a decade, and the highly social aspects around them – the group travel from London and the pub before and after – have become more important to me than the actual games. (Indeed, I’ve heard tales of people who, during exceptionally lean times, would be halfway through a pint at quarter to three, think “fuck it” and not bother going to Carrow Road at all.) I’ve been to plenty of matches alone when abroad, as a way of taking in another aspect of the culture, but I already know north-east London, and English non-League football in general, well enough, so didn’t feel I had much to learn there. Sometimes, watching a club other than City provides an opportunity to see someone legendary in action, but at this level, you’re not likely to catch someone on their way up – for decades now, bigger clubs’ scouting networks have been far too developed for a genuine prospect to remain long at a side like this – and big names on their way down don’t often descend this far. (The most notable Walthamstow ex-player I found was Samuel Okunowo, who played for Barcelona in the Champions League in 1998-99 before coming to E17 twelve years later, after a career wracked by injuries.)

One thing about attending alone is deciding when to get to the ground. Do I arrive early to soak up the atmosphere, rather than doing my usual thing at Norwich of rocking up at 2.55pm? Won't that then mean lots of hanging around the stadium, bored? Unsure of how long the 56 will take, given the effect of the pandemic on London traffic, I leave in good time, and approach Wadham Lodge about half an hour before kick-off. It's my favourite type of stadium: one situated within a community, like Anfield or Selhurst Park or Manchester City’s old home at Maine Road, requiring supporters to walk through winding streets of terraced houses to get there. (These make me think not so much of other grounds, but of my doomed canvassing for Faiza Shaheen in nearby Chingford, back in that nightmarish election campaign.) There aren’t any others walking these streets with me, and I miss the usual throng of home and away fans in replica shirts and scarves, the traffic and even the police horses, but I still feel a little thrill on going through the turnstiles and seeing a new ground open up before me.

Soaking up the atmosphere doesn’t take long. It takes just a couple of minutes to look at the single main stand, the open side with the dug-outs opposite, and covered ends behind the goals – a typical non-League ground – and the individuals and small groups dotted around it. A table just behind the turnstiles has hand sanitiser, a couple of bottles of wine and a box of Celebrations offered as prizes for the half-time raffle, and a sign saying ‘No Beer’, apologising for the bar being closed as a precautionary measure. I can still buy Walthamstow programmes, scarves and hats, though, as well as face masks; I decide not to bother and look at the team sheet that has been stuck on a wall, but even as a football obsessive, I don’t know any names on either side. Then I notice that the stand (with its seats) is invite-only, probably reserved for the players’ socially-distanced friends and family, and decide to go behind one of the goals.

I think momentarily about befriending a group of youngish-looking guys, but decide it would be weird and awkward, and sit on the concrete reading a volume of poetry by Maureen N. McLane. Then I worry that this, and my painted nails, will prompt any passing lads to give me hassle – an anxiety that reminds me of being at school – before finding that no-one is bothered. As the match kicks off, I look at who's in the ground. There are a handful of people in blue and white Walthamstow scarves who are clearly regulars, including a group who sing ‘Stow’ to the tune of Gold by Spandau Ballet (which I’m not going to link to, because it’s shit) and a young boy who yells “get up!” every time a Lions player goes down, no matter how obviously badly they’re hurt. There are a few people in other clubs’ colours – here, like me, to get their football fix away from their usual homes – as well as some families or couples. Mt favourites are a small group of men whose allegiances I can’t pin down, but one of them has a Scottish accent and talks about how he knows the managers of various Glaswegian clubs, as well as former Celtic defender Derek Whyte, whose name I haven’t heard since about 1997.

Four minutes into the match, Max Kyte puts the visitors (who don’t seem to have brought many fans) ahead, and I thought it might be a long night. I was surprised at having an emotional investment so quickly: this was my local team, and perhaps I should spend the season supporting the Stags, getting a group of friends together to join me, rather than traipsing around London and the south-east? I was drawn in further when Walthamstow scored early in the second half, attacking our end, as Michael Osei hit a sweet shot into the top corner. Four minutes later, Kyte put the Lions back in front, but neither the home team nor their fans gave up: the supporters around me sunk plenty of effort in annoying and unnerving the opposing goalkeeper, David Myers, while Walthamstow  pushed for an equaliser. It paid off: they scored twice in two minutes, Connor Scully blasting home from the edge of the box to level, before Charncey Dash (a fine name for an inter-war outside-right, I thought) went one-on-one against Myers and made it 3-2. The two blokes next to me laughed and jeered at Myers as he picked the ball out of the net, and Myers squared up to them before the referee intervened – I had my camera out to take pictures for this blog and thought about papping Myers for a laugh, but decided not to antagonise the poor guy further.

Ten minutes later, the final whistle went: Walthamstow were through the next (preliminary qualifying) round! I didn’t care that I had no-one to celebrate with, clapping the players off with the rest of the fans as if I’d been coming here all my life. I probably won’t be back for the Cockfosters match on the 12th, as I’ve already lined up something else, but I could do far worse than making Wadham Lodge my home, at least for the season.

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