Sutton United Arsenal
Sutton midfielder Craig Eastmond tells Jim White that facing former club Arsenal is a T dream clash he moment the ball came out to reveal Sutton United’s next FA Cup opponents, Craig Eastmond was submerged under a wave of unhinged celebration. The Sutton midfielder was in the bar at the club’s Gander Green Lane ground watching the fifth-round draw on television and was momentarily overwhelmed by what he had just seen.
“In this run, we’ve beaten teams from the Conference, League Two, League One and the Championship. So, we wanted to complete the sequence and get a Premier League side,” he says. “But Arsenal? I couldn’t believe it. I was just amazed. Everyone was leaping around, you could just see what it meant for people. And for me it means everything. This is just surreal.”
At Sutton, everyone was thrilled to draw Arsenal, from the chairman contem-plating the income, through the coach preparing to pitch his wits against the longest-serving manager in English league football, to the fans astonished to see household names playing in the middle of south London suburbia.
But for Eastmond it means something even more significant. For him, this is personal. “If you’d said to me, ‘What are your greatest ambitions in football?’ I think playing Arsenal in the FA Cup would be right up there. I honestly can’t believe it is happening.” Eastmond is not just a lifelong Arsenal fan, he was at the club for 11 years. This is a player who for a long time believed that if ever Arsenal came to be taking on a non-League side in the Cup, he would be wearing a red shirt. “When you’re coming through the ranks, your dreams are definitely about playing for the Arsenal first team, not the side they’re up against.” A Battersea boy, he joined the club when he was 12, after being plucked from the academy at Millwall. As he progressed, Arsenal’s junior coaches reckoned he had something of the Paul Davis about him. Tall and languid, elegant in possession of the ball, he was nonetheless robust in retrieving it back. It was no surprise that he was eventually recommended to Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, as someone who could make the transition to the first team. And, over four seasons, he made 10 first-team appearances, playing in a full house of competitions, the League and FA Cups, Premier League and Champions League. In 2013, realising his chances of permanent promotion were slight, he moved on to Colchester. He went with Wenger’s best wishes. “The boss was always good to me,” he recalls. “When I left, he said: ‘Keep going and you will get back up there, you need to play week in, week out.’ ” At Colchester, he seemed to blossom as a first-team regular. But, after a change of management, in 2015 he was not offered a new contract. And after one undistinguished outing with Yeovil Town, he found himself without a club. “He and everyone else thought he would get floods of offers,” says Sutton manager Paul Doswell. “But he was on holiday and people couldn’t get hold of him. When he came back in August, he still didn’t have a club.” At 24, Eastmond was facing the most premature of retirements. Tomorrow, 7.55pm, BBC1 Maxime Biamou and Dean Beckwith are both doubts for Sutton. Midfielder Jeffrey Monakana will miss out due to a hamstring injury. Craig Eastmond is available after serving a three-match ban. Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny has a thigh injury and is unlikely to feature. Arsène Wenger has said he will pick a “normal team”.
Although joining a part-time operation, Eastmond did not seek other employment, preferring to spend time keeping himself fit under Lawrence’s tutelage. As an approach, it worked. He was instrumental in guiding the club to promotion to the National League in his first season. That is the level at which the Sutton board wishes to remain, largely because English Football League rules would oblige the club to rip up their money-spinning artificial surface were they to gain further elevation.
But Doswell appreciates some of his players have further ambition. And in a dressing room alongside former League stalwarts such as Matt Tubbs and Nicky Bailey, Eastmond has found a shared belief that the FA Cup offers a unique opportunity to remind League managers of their presence. This is a shop window like no other.