SQUEAKY BUMS, GROUND GRADING & MOMENTS THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING

To be printed in the Southern League Premier Division game v Redditch Saturday 29th April 2017. Last game of the season. Or is it

It was one of those moments in football that change everything. Shoreham, top of the Southern Combination Premier League for the whole season, were drawing 1-1 in a dire game against Horsham YMCA. A rock hard bobbley pitch in a game littered with bookings and two sendings off – with one of those dismissed quickly getting himself a pint and a fag! A poor kick from the Shoreham keeper in injury time and Horsham's Schaaf pounces making it 2-1. The final whistle goes and the result means that Haywards Heath leapfrog the Musselmen to go top of the league with two games to go. Shoreham players slump to the ground and I spot the chairman looking despairingly out of the clubhouse window.

Shoreham Middle Road ground has been given a real blue and white spruce up over the past few seasons especially in the past few months with the Ground Grading Gestapo on their way. The chairman Stuart Slaney and the Shoreham committee have worked hard to turn the club around; not just with youth football teams meaning at least there are youngsters at games who have to fetch lost balls and get into the habit of live Saturday football but also hosting business networking events and its starting to pay off. A team that had grown more accustomed to the bottom half of the league had also been given a spring clean and this season have been flying. Crowds now average just over 100 – an impressive 30% increase on last season and today's bank holiday crowd was healthy enough for queues at the chip-bar and a real buzz about the place.

For ambitious clubs at Step Five of the football pyramid it's not just ground grading you're up against, its the fact that only one team gets promoted. So how about play-offs for a second promotion spot? This might be difficult because many teams don't want too or cant get promoted (unpainted fence panel, see below) but it would mean unless the pyramid was re-organised 4 teams rather than 3 being shown the trap door from the divisions above.

I'm always astonished that the ground graders complain about an unpainted fence post or some loose gravel but turn a blind eye to pitches. Yes the Football Foundation is fantastic at giving grants for clubs to do up their grounds, but shouldn't their be a similar pot for clubs to spend on their pitches?

Shoreham passed the ground grading but now might fail the promotion test in the last week of the season. Football can be an unforgiving bastard.

Last season Brighton didn't get automatic promotion by one goal and lost in the play-offs. This season they are heading to the Premier Promised Land. It didn't feel it at the time for Seagulls fans, but I reckon that extra season in the Championship has done them a massive favour. Is also worth remembering that just 20 years ago they lost their ground and nearly fell out of the football league altogether. 1-0 down to Hereford at half time, they equalised and stayed up on goal difference, consigning Hereford to the Conference.

Slough have been a bit hot and cold lately and could tumble out of the play-off places. I'll probably be hung, drawn and quartered for saying this but although I would love promotion to the Conference South (if nothing else there's a lot more teams near me including one a 10 minute bus ride away) it wouldn't be the end of the world to do another season in the Southern Premier. You would expect us to be challenging for promotion and winning lots of home games with our crowds continuing to rise as a result while the new stand is opened.

So the traditional Slough Town squeaky bum time of year, when I’ve got my eye on so many permutations my brain hurts. This might be the end of the season. Or it might not, but whatever happens today let's get behind the team, cos it's been a fantastic season.

YOU MAKE ME HAPPY WHEN SKIES ARE GREY

Printed in the Southern League Premier Division game v Cirencester Town on Good Friday 14th April 2017. We lost 2-0 in front of 780

It must have been the sunshine and beer, cos it certainly wasn't the quality of the football that had us all singing on the packed coach back from Kettering. One of those songs 'We love you Sliski we do' our tribute to Mr. Slough Town Chris who tragically passed away five years to the day.

I hadn't been back to Kettering since one of our greatest ever days supporting the Rebels or as our co-manager Neil Baker tweeted 'the place I had my best afternoon in football.' It was May 2014 and we were stuck in some endless play-off loop and looked like we were heading for yet another play-off defeat. 2-0 down at half time and you couldn't see where a goal was coming from. But boy did the team deliver. 3 second half goals and finally promotion. My favourite photo is our chairman Steve Easterbrook hugging Dave the Programme on the pitch. Dave Pearcy saw us get promoted but unfortunately never saw us back home. As for the scenes back at the Herschel Arms later with players, officials and supporters celebrating. Let's just say many of us didn't make it to work the next day.

You got to feel for Kettering's fall from grace. Rockingham Road was a proper old ground and I always thought they should have been in the Football League. In 1992 they sold it to help save the club from extinction and this lease arrangement was always a ticking time bomb for the club. So it proved as they eventually moved out, sunk by debts of £1.2 million. While the club haven't given up hope of returning home they have put in a planning application to upgrade their frankly sparse ground they share with Burton Park Wanderers of the United Counties Division One (level 10 and too low to enter the FA Cup).

Ground grading always confuses me with the FA worrying far too much about an extra turnstile or a new stand that will always be empty while turning a blind eye to terrible pitches – pitches that really don't suit Slough Town's style of play. 3-0 to Kettering and as Neil Baker tweeted 'If ever a game highlighted how much better 3G is as a spectacle for fans then today was it! Terrible pitches produce terrible games!'

Kieran was on good form and in the second half sat in one of the home sides temporary stands which looks like its been borrowed from a wedding hire company, singing about the Rebels amongst some Kettering kids who were giving him an ear-bashing.

At the end of the game we all scrabbled round on twitter to see where that left us for a place in the play-offs. It's still in our hands but we all know that a home tie at Arbour Park would be a massive advantage.

Back on the coach, one of the oldest supporting Rebels John Tebbit was being serenaded with his own song. John has been supporting the Rebels since 1954 and been writing for the programme since the 1970's. Singing 'Where we you in '43', seemed a little unfair.

It seemed rude not to finish off the day with a drink at the Alpha Arms. Transformed from the smallest pub in Slough in the days when my dad was alive and who seemed to spend more time in their than at home. The old Alpha landlady was having a drink and wasn't so sure my dad would have approved of the changes. BOOM he would have shouted and i'm sure I saw a glass move across the table as I raised one to him.

As I watch Brighton edge ever closer to the Premier League Promised Land, I know that I always enjoy my trips to watch Slough Town so much more. 'You are my Slough Town, my only Slough Town..'

THE LARDY BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

Printed in the Southern League Premier Division game v Kings Lynn on April 1^st 2017. We won 3-0 in front of 607

It probably passed by many Rebels radars, but shout from the West Sussex rooftops, Horsham are finally coming home after 9 nomadic years. Their planning application was their third and final throw of the dice. The stakes were high as councillors had turned down two previous applications, and if they were rejected a third one, Horsham officials said it would be curtains for the club.

The first time I came across Horsham their fans were dressed up for Halloween in an FA Cup replay at Maidenhead United and sang songs about Lard. The Lardy Boys have had their moments of glory including an FA Cup 2^nd round game against Swansea City where they drew 1-1 in front of their first ever televised game.

I always enjoyed visiting Horshams Queens Street. It was a bit crumbling but a proper non league – you know with that old fashioned terracing resplendent with the odd tuft of grass and wildflower popping out of the concrete cracks. The last time I went Slough were already homeless and having a torrid time in the Ryman Premier. Just before the match started there was a torrential downpour. Poor old Yeovil Steve arrived after finishing his Somerset bin round just as the game was called off. He helped push someone's car stuck in the flooded car-park and got covered in mud just to round off a rubbish afternoon. Queens Street was where football grounds belong – smack bang in the centre of town. But I knew from conversations with their chairman that they couldn't generate enough income to survive and the offer of cash to sell the ground for housing would help the club prosper in the future.

The problem with plans is that people and in this case councillors get in the way and as Slough fans know only to well, a nomadic existence isn't good for your wealth, health or attendances. At one point Horsham found themselves relegated to the Sussex County League for the first time in 64 years ground-sharing with Horsham YMCA as another application was rejected.

So you can imagine it was a pretty tense night, the sort of night that twitter was made for as people reported on the twists and turns of the committee. It was an impassioned speech by Albion season ticket holder and Tory councillor Billy Greening who set the tone telling the committee the application was the biggest issue from his constituents – and when the first application was submitted he was still at school completing his GCSE'S! Eventually councillors voted 19-1 in favour of a new 1,300 capacity football ground off the Worthing Road. As one fan put it 'Billy Greening perfectly sums up the opinion of so many people. We need to cherish our communities and the facilities that help them thrive.'

The ground will see the installation of two new all-weather 3G pitches, which will provide a much-needed sporting facility for everyone across the community every day of the week, a clubhouse and low impact floodlighting – and probably most importantly in an age when somehow the 5^th richest country in the world can't afford anything – at no cost to the taxpayer.

Horsham president Frank King said “I am so glad that the council at long last have given us an 80 per cent support. There is no doubt about it, if this had failed, I am not quite sure where we would have gone.” Horshams manager Dominic Di Paola has made no secret of the struggles his side have faced by having no reserve, under-18 or under-21 teams this season. With two 3G pitches, the Hornets can start to start more teams to bolster player numbers and also generate funds of their own rather than spending money on ground sharing. Better facilities also attracts better players.

To cap a fantastic week, Horsham then beat league leaders Tooting and Mitcham, who were on a 14 match unbeaten run. The Lardy Boys once again have something to sing about.