Are they having a giraffe?
No TV billing but little Sutton bring romance to game’s grand old stage
A PORTLY man dressed in the yellow kit of Sutton United walked into the cramped gents’ toilets in the main stand at Gander Green Lane an hour or so before kick-off against AFC Wimbledon and stood next to the BBC reporter Mark Clemmit.
‘Once you get into that giraffe costume,’ said the man, as if he thought an explanation were necessary, ‘there’s no getting out of it.’
A few minutes later, Jenny the Giraffe, the Sutton mascot, was wandering out on to the 3G pitch in front of a little stadium packed to its capacity of 5,000 or more for what many considered to be the tie of the round.
Nessun Dorma played over the loudspeaker system, the crowd in the low-slung stands brandished yellow balloons and Jenny waved two flags enthusiastically as the home fans bounced up and down on the terrace behind the goal.
If ever a Cup-tie were redolent of the romance of the competition, it was this one, played out amid the red roofs and neat parks of Surrey suburbia. The television companies pay lip service to that romance when they boast of their coverage but ignore it when they make their choice of live games.
So this match was shunned by the BBC and BT, as were the ties involving Barrow, Lincoln City, Eastleigh and Stourbridge. More fool them.
In the days of Premier League sides fielding weakened teams and treating the competition as an inconvenience, this is where the spirit of the FA Cup resides.
These two teams have an especially rich tradition, too. Dickie Guy, the hero of Wimbledon’s epic ties against Leeds United in 1975 in the club’s previous incarnation, is now their president. And it was here at Gander Green Lane, 28 years ago to the day, where Sutton vanquished top flight Coventry City, who had won the FA Cup 18 months earlier.
This game was played in the right spirit, too. It was called ‘the friendly derby’ before the match and the visit was a sentimental journey for the away supporters who made it.
AFC Wimbledon played their first ever match here after they had been reborn as a Combined Counties League side following the original club’s bitterly resented re-location to Milton Keynes.
More than 4,500 fans had crowded into the ground that day in 2002 to give the first indication of the support from across the English game that would follow the club as it rose through the divisions to its present position halfway up League One. It is a fairy-tale that goes on and on. This time, of course, AFC Wimbledon were the giants and Sutton, currently 14th in the National League, were playing the role of underdogs.
They played it well. They dominated play in the first half and should have taken the lead inside ten minutes when Matt Tubbs burst through but pulled his shot wide.
They wasted another golden opportunity a couple of minutes later when Micky Bailey was allowed to run unmarked on to a curling free kick and headed over from 10 yards when he really ought to have scored. Wimbledon found it hard to establish any sort of foothold in the game and seemed to be struggling to adapt to the artificial surface.
‘The pitch was massive,’ the Wimbledon manager, Neil Ardley, said after the game. ‘I didn’t want to allude to it too much beforehand but I knew they would be very difficult to beat here.’
A few minutes before half-time, the League One side had another lucky escape when Maxime Biamou raced clean through and lifted a rising drive past James Shea only to see it graze the top of the bar.
Wimbledon were indebted to a fine save from Shea to deny Biamou again midway through the second
half. The floodlights cast their glare so dimly that the later stages of the game were played in an eerie artificial dusk but it did not dull the determination of either side to make it through to the fourth round.
Few clear chances manifested themselves in the gloom as the teams fought it out to the end.
Paul Doswell, the Sutton boss who has invested more than £1million of his own money in the club and paid for the artificial pitch, stood stock still in front of the dug-out as the final whistle neared.
Behind him, Sutton’s reserve keeper, Wayne Shaw, a stocky figure whose eating habits might be betrayed by his nickname, Salad, urged his team-mates on in their resistance as AFC Wimbledon finally began to press for a winner.
Deep into injury time, Paul Robinson thought he had secured victory for the League One team when he rose to meet a cross in the six-yard box but somehow Sutton keeper, Ross Worner, who left Wimbledon after he was dropped when he got stuck in traffic before a game and was late, clawed it away.
Football at this level is full of stories like that, full of romance and revenge and heartache and triumph against the odds. Even in the midst of a nil-nil draw.
‘It was played in the right spirit,’ Ardley said. ‘I think they edged it but we are delighted to be in the fourth-round draw and we are optimistic about the replay.’ Maybe a television company will recognise that.
Maybe they will grasp the second chance that has been handed to them and cover the replay at Kingsmeadow the week after next. There were no big names at Gander Green Lane yesterday. There weren’t even any goals. But it didn’t matter. It’s where the heart of the competition lies.