Fighting Rams Give Hendon FA Cup Scare

By Micky Taylor, Author and Non-League Football Pundit

Winning, they say in football, is everything, no matter what, and losing can become a bad habit.

You would be right to say that you get nothing out of defeat, but I have to tell you now that in this FA.Cup tie we did get something out of a defeat which I will explain.

I had just been appointed as the new manager of Croydon Athletic.

We were playing Spartan League football, four divisions below Hendon, who were then in the Isthmian League Premier Division with a history and honours as long as a country mile.

The match was at their famous old Claremont Road ground, slope and all, (nothing like their new ground, Silver Jubilee Park, and its 3G surface which came after years of living out of a suitcase).

Nothing to fear there I thought, let’s give it our best, after all we had knocked Lewes, also from the Isthmian League, out, in the round before.

This senior club football was new to me as a manager. I had had success with representative football for Surrey FA and other representative sides along with Saturday and Sunday park football and trophies galore, but I now was responsible for a playing budget and a chairman who paid it.

Onto the game itself and some of the events that took place during the game, at half-time, and in the Boardroom afterwards.

I had quite a good side with Terry Gale (brother of West Ham Tony Gale) as captain of a good mixture of young and old who could handle the task before them playing a 4-5-1 system.

I can say they did give it their all, despite going 1-0 down after only 2 minutes. But, despite that, the Rams had the better of the first half, going up the slope on a perfect surface, and striker Jon Fowler seemed to have equalised when he shrugged off the attention of the experienced Curtis Warmington (Hendon’s new signing) to fire home.

Sadly, our joy was short-lived when for some reason, and no-one in the ground could understand why, he was adjudged to have been offside.

The referee had no problem with it until he saw his assistant with his flag raised.

The Ram’s youngsters were really having a go and with Gary Thornton hitting the post with a great shot I was beginning to wonder what we had to do to score.

Such was the tempo that Fowler and Warmington had some words when the defender hacked down the striker.

For this reason, both players received yellow cards which was to cost the Rams and Fowler dearly in the second half.

So now to half-time and instructions to the players which now proved to be a problem as I wanted to bring my new signing, French midfield player Yaker Belkacem, on to go with a two up front but he could not understand a word of English and therefore I could not explain what I wanted him to do.

I called for my vice chairman, Clive Thompson, to come to the dressing room as he spoke French to give him my instructions.

Time was getting short, so I told him to forget it and we started the second half how we finished the first.

This time we had the slope in our favour and I really thought we could go on and win the game or at least a replay until disaster struck 10 minutes into the second half when our defenders` clearance was clearly handled by a Hendon player and palmed into the path of Michael Banton to score, with us left flat-footed.

I had gone from thinking we could get something out of the game to wondering what was going to happen to us next.

You have guessed it, Jonny Fowler and Curtis Warmington clashed again but only Fowler got a second yellow and a red leaving us down to ten-men for the last 20 minutes but still we never gave up.

I now put the French player Belkacem on up top and he played very well and caused Hendon quite a few problems but, in the end, we ran out of steam and lost the game 2-0.

I was proud of the team and we had done the Spartan League proud as well.

It was then, in the Boardroom, after the game, that the Hendon chairman, Ivor Arbiter, pulled me aside and paid me a great compliment when he said: “I would swap my team for yours any day on the playing budget you have which I bet is not even a quarter of mine.”

I said: “The chairman takes care of a couple of players and the rest just get expenses.”

Arbiter replied: “Well, you have a very good team, and they did you proud and against all the odds and some strange decisions given against them.

“I know you will do well this season, mark my words.”

So, this is my point, sometimes a defeat can ruin your spirit or, alternatively, what you take from it can give you a boost as it did me, and the team, and I am proud to tell you that in my first season as manager in senior club football at Croydon Athletic, we made club history and were promoted from the Spartan League to the Isthmian League.

Oh, happy days, and how spot-on was Mr Arbiter!

(Micky Taylor`s excellent book `Non-League Football - A Roller Coaster Ride To Beat Any` is available to buy from Amazon priced £12.99 (Kindle version £3.99. All proceeds to Cancer Research).