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Sutton High Football Club is an English football club based in Sutton, South London, England. The club are members of the Surrey South Eastern Combination. The club currently play at Wallington Sports & Social Club.SUTTON HIGH: A POTTED HISTORY

Sutton High FC is an amateur football club currently affiliated to the Surrey FA and competing in the Surrey South Eastern Combination. They currently play at Wallington Sports & Social Club and is an FA Chartered Standard Community Club.

HISTORY

Somewhere amid the mass of Sutton High memorabilia in founder Alan Woodiwiss’s cupboards, there is a yellowing old exercise book that records details of the club’s first-ever football match. The team-sheet is scrawled with a real ink pen – no Biros back then – in Woodiwiss’s barely decipherable handwriting. Meticulous as ever, he has noted down the opposition (Gladstone Sports), the score (a 4-2 victory, with Woodiwiss scoring two of the goals), the venue (Cheam Recreation Ground), and – with almost audible contempt – the fact that two of the chosen players (I.D. Sneddon and S.L Naygar) ‘failed to turn up’. The date of that first outing was September 9th, 1954.

For any local, amateur club to survive for more than half a century is a marvellous achievement. Most fold after a few seasons when their founding players are too old to drag themselves to the bar, let alone the pitch. But after Woodiwiss hung up his boots, he was determined to keep Sutton High alive. That he has done so – with the help of many ‘disciples’ – is a testimony to his enthusiasm, hard work, and sheer bloody-mindedness.

He has always loved the game and was eager to revive a playing career that had begun at the old Sutton High School. So he decided to contact a few of his old school friends – such as Bryan Cole, Alan Ratcliffe and Terry Watts – and form a team. Thus, in the season 1954/55, wearing the colours that have become the club trademark – claret and sky blue shirts – Sutton High Old Boys first took to the field.

The team for the inaugural match read as follows: P. Mockett, A. Ratcliffe, P. Walker (no relation to the 1st XI star of the 90s), B. Cole, R. James, A. Philips, P. Darrel, A. Woodiwiss, D. Stuart, B.Boniface and, for some reason, a ‘guest’. Along with Woodiwiss, Don Stuart bagged a brace. The team struggled in that first season and eventually finished bottom of the Sutton and District League Division 6. Their final record read: played 18, won 4, drawn 2, lost 12, for 30, against 70, points 10.

Things could only improve and they did. Strengthened by the signing of livewire striker Tony Rowland, a veritable goal machine, the side secured the runners up spot the following year. Further promotions followed until, in 1969, the team reached the dizzy heights of the Sutton and District Premier Division. By this point Sutton High School had closed (in 1962), and the club dropped the ‘Old Boys’ tag in 1967.

Relegation, however, soon followed and the club remained in the lower divisions of the Sutton and District League. Then, in 1978, another crop of good signings – notably former Leek Town star John Langley (who would become the club’s fearsome, Sergeant Major-like trainer), Dave Farmer, Ettorre Mazza and Phil Daniels – hauled the club back into the top flight.

Heading into the 80s, Mick Pilfold was player manager of the 1st XI and oversaw five glorious years. Under his guidance, the club enjoyed a great season in 1988/89. The 1sts won the Charity A Cup (1-0 against OCS, which followed winning the same cup in 1987/88) and secured promotion to the Surrey Intermediate League. The 2nds won the Charity B Cup (3-1 against Fetcham Reserves) and joined them in the higher level’s reserve section.

The 90s were a little barren given what had gone before, but the club’s Youth XI – which had been disbanded some years before – were re-formed in 1993. That was when David Jones – who played for the 1st XI in the mid-80s after descending from the North – formed an Under 15s team. From unpromising beginnings (heavy defeats were not uncommon), the young team gathered strength and acquired new players, and won the Epsom and Ewell Parks Division 2.

In 1996/97, when most of the youth players turned 17, the team moved into men’s football, affiliating with the Leatherhead & District Sunday Football League. Several older players were brought in to nurse the youngsters along, notably Steve Yeeles, and they did themselves great credit, gaining promotion from Division 10 and reaching a cup final in their first season.

In the years that followed, that Sunday XI brought many trophies to the club, earning promotion in every successive season. The crowning moment came in 2002/03, when they won the Premier Division title on goal difference, scoring the all crucial goal in the final few minutes of their last match of the season: a truly thrilling, nail-biting finish to a wonderful campaign. They retained the league’s top honour the following season, too, losing just one league game. Many of this team graduated to the Saturday 1st XI too and formed a key part of the squad that reached the County Cup final in 2000, losing narrowly on penalties. That was some team, with the youth mixing with high quality experience like Tom Gibson, Dennis Sullivan and Carl Langley.

Since those halcyon days, the club fell on hard times. Many of the excellent Saturday 1st XI retired – most galling was the injury that forced South African centre-back JP Laurent, one of the best players to wear the shirt, to retire at 26 - and the younger generation coming through started working more and more on Saturdays, leaving no other choice but to fold the team and lose Intermediate status.

All was not lost, however. Under the tutelage of Martin Killerby and Mark Kebble, a new Saturday XI was established in the bottom rung of the SSEC, but the team that was cobbled together for the 2004/05 season still managed to win Junior Division 4 and gain instant promotion.

The next few years saw the club enjoy an award-laden period. The Sunday XI moved to the hugely competitive Morden & District league and, in their first season in 2004/05, they won promotion from Division 1, and also claimed the George Arnold Cup in a thrilling 3-2 win against Sinjuns in the final (the run to the final also included a club record 18-0 win vs Kingswood). They retained the George Arnold Cup the following season in another classic, a 4-3 extra time win vs Grunwald.

It was also a period where the club ventured into new ground by taking part in the FA Sunday Cup, the most prestigious competition of its kind. The 2003/04 season saw the club finding its feet and realising what a step up it was in terms of opposition, reaching the second round before losing to Reading Irish 4-2. The following season the club was entered again and went on a stirring run. It all started with a 4-1 lashing of, well, Lashings, before an enthralling 5-3 home win against Luton Old Boys in the second round. It meant the club were in the last 32 of the best Sunday teams in the UK, and headed off to Bristol for the third round, hiring a team coach no less to make the journey. Alas, against a team full of semi professionals, it was a step too far and we made the long journey back drowning the sorrows after a 7-0 annihilation. It proved to be the last season we made the draw, but what an experience it was.

Meanwhile, the Saturday XI continued to build up and progress through the leagues. The season 2006/07 saw them win the Geoff Ellis Premier Shield against Weston Green Sports, and follow the trick in the same cup and against the same opposition the following year, backed up too with winning Junior Division 1. With a formidable team featuring Steve Foster, Matt Raymond, Bradley Orrin and a rather good Scottish contingent including Paul Smillie and the Silander brothers, they were heading back into the Intermediate section.

The next decade, again, proved to be tough for the club as players got older and moved on. The Saturday XI managed to keep their Intermediate status until 2014, when it was decided there just were not the players to compete. The Sunday XI was soon taken over by more club legends in the shape of Alun Jones and Mickey Hudson, with many of the excellent youth intake graduating into adult football. Until 2013 they stayed in the Morden & District Premier Division, always competing, until calling time on what was a glorious period for the Sunday XI (with another George Arnold Cup win thrown in, beating Norton 4-1 in 2012).

But now another re-emergence is under way. Almost folding the club completely, Terry Horsted persuaded all involved to give it one more go and we went into the 2017/18 season with an almost new team, managed by Mark Kebble – and Junior Division 4 was promptly won, thrillingly on goal difference.

To the present day and there are two Saturday XIs in the SSEC still, with plans on the horizon to build the club up once again as the 70th anniversary since Alan Woodiwiss formed the club fast approaches. Testimony to the great man himself, he was awarded an MBE in 2012 in light of his work at grassroots level, worthy recognition of one man’s burning desire to just play the beautiful game.

 CLUB HONOURS 

1974/75

Sutton & District Charity B Cup winners

1987/88

Sutton & District Charity A Cup winners

1988/89

Sutton & District Charity A Cup winners

Sutton & District Charity B Cup winners

1994/95

Epsom & Ewell Parks League Under 16s Division 2 champions

1999/2000

Surrey South Eastern Combination Intermediate Division 2 champions

Leatherhead & District Football League Division 5 champions

Leatherhead & District Football League Junior Charity Shield winners

2000/01

Leatherhead & District Football League Division 3 champions

2001/02

Leatherhead & District Football League Division 1 champions

2002/03

Leatherhead & District Football League Premier Division champions

2003/04

Surrey South Eastern Combination Junior Division 4 champions

Leatherhead & District Football League Premier Division champions

2004/05

Morden & District George Arnold Cup winners

2005/06

Morden & District George Arnold Cup winners

2006/07

Surrey South Eastern Combination Geoff Ellis Premier Shield winners

2007/08

Surrey South Eastern Combination Junior Division 1 champions

Surrey South Eastern Combination Geoff Ellis Premier Shield winners

2011/12

Morden & District George Arnold Cup winners

2017/18

Surrey South Eastern Combination Junior Division 4 champions

 Category:Association football clubs established in 1898 Category:Football clubs in England Category:Isthmian League Category:Sport in the London Borough of Sutton Category:National League (English football) Category:Football clubs in London Category:Athenian League Category:1898 establishments in England Category:Sutton, London