Following our triumph in the Surrey Senior Cup semi-final against Sutton United on penalties, we can confirm that our Southern League Premier South fixture away at Taunton Town, originally scheduled for Wednesday April 22nd, has now been brought forward to Monday April 20th, making way for the Surrey Senior Cup final which will be held at Dorking Wanderers’ Meadowbank on Wednesday.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Taunton Town who have gone above and beyond to accommodate us on short-notice despite being under no obligation to do so, proving themselves to be a classy and thoughtful football operation.
Progression to the final means we will play 11 games in 25 days in April, including six in 12 days to close the season over this week and next, ahead of the Southern League Premier South play-offs which start on Wednesday April 29th.
Every cup competition we enter, we do so with the intention of fielding competitive teams and advancing as far as we can out of respect for our fans and the competition, and in the case of the Surrey Senior Cup, our intention from the start of the season, as it is every year – we want to win it.
Over a period of several months, we have been proactive in our efforts to communicate with the Surrey FA in regards to our progress in the Surrey Senior Cup to try and avoid the fixture pile-up we now find ourselves in and, unfortunately, those efforts have fallen on deaf ears repeatedly.
The First Round Draw was made on August 22nd, with a view to having all ties completed by “the start of October” the Surrey FA noted during their live draw. We played our First Round tie on September 30th against Epsom & Ewell, where a 5-1 victory booked our place in the Second Round.
The Second Round Draw was made on October 24th, where we were drawn away at Kingstonian, who were yet to play their First Round tie at the time. Second Round ties were to be played “in November and early December”, but it wasn’t for almost six weeks before their First Round tie at Metropolitan Police was played on December 2nd – nine weeks after we played our corresponding fixture.
It would then be almost 12 weeks until we played Kingstonian in the Second Round, taking place on February 23rd. During that time, we made several proposals to both Kingstonian and the Surrey FA regarding proposed dates for this fixture well in advance of the eventual February 23rd date, including offers to reverse the fixture so it could be held at The Memorial Ground, or offering solutions for a third-party, all-weather venue during a very wet winter period, which were all refuted.
Due to ground share complications, Kingstonian eventually agreed to flip the fixture so it would be hosted at Farnham, a decision which could have been made several weeks prior.
While we acknowledge adverse weather over the winter coupled with juggling ground share schedules add a layer of difficulty in slotting fixtures in, we can’t help but feel like the Surrey FA could have stepped in to ensure all of the above fixtures were completed in a much more timely manner, rather than months after the competition organisers had planned.
Winter postponements have meant that we have played a minimum of two games a week from that Kingstonian game onwards. Lack of dates meant our clash with Tooting & Mitcham in the Quarter-Final was put in for Wednesday April 1st, two days before the Easter Weekend double-header.
After beating Kingstonian, we lobbied with the Surrey FA to explore the possibility of potentially moving the Final from it’s current date of April 22nd – a date we already had a rearranged league fixture booked in at Taunton Town. They refused to entertain the idea of moving the fixture if we progressed to the final. We did the same after we beat Tooting & Mitcham on April 1st, again to no success.
We were forced to push our league fixture at Hanwell Town from Tuesday April 14th to Thursday April 16th this week to accommodate hosting Sutton United in the semi-final, which we won on penalties. After which, we reached out to the Surrey FA one final time to plea to them to consider moving the date of the final until after the season had been completed, to no avail.
With vital play-off positioning still up for grabs in the Southern League Premier South, the Surrey Senior Cup final now takes place less than 36 hours after our team arrives home from their trip to Taunton Town on Monday night, and days before we travel back down west to play Tiverton Town on the final day of the league season.
The Surrey FA told us that their decision to change tact this year and host the Surrey Senior Cup final before the completion of the league season was to “avoid affecting potential play-offs” – however they have achieved doing so by slotting in a cup final less than 72 hours before the end of the Step 3 and 4 league campaigns, not to mention the ongoing National League and National League South schedules, where there are countless clubs who could have seen their promotion, play-off or relegation battle preparations disrupted as a result.
This is the hand we have been dealt, and we knew what we signed up for. We have every intention of competing against multiple fronts as best we can out of respect for the competitions. That said, it’s clear to see that in this situation, there is a clear disregard for player welfare and safety.
The Surrey FA should act in the best interest of their clubs to try and ensure the final is as exciting and competitive as it can be. Unfortunately, they haven’t done in this instance but we hope this will be a learning experience and that in future seasons, the Surrey FA can act to make sure fixtures are completed in a timely manner, taking a firmer hand in doing so, and are more acutely aware of the football calendar their member clubs have and work collaboratively with those clubs to find amicable solutions to problems as and when they arise.