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Gaffer's Chat with Harry Hudson - 16/10/2019
Harry, you mentioned in a previous Gaffer’s Chat how highly you rate Tooting & Mitcham FC? They are certainly a very useful side? Yes it was a good game of football and I think they are one of the best sides at our level. I thought it was an even game but once we got level we were in the ascendancy and I fancied us to find the winner. In the end we got sucker punched from 2 our own offensive set plays - the third goal is one of them where Tyler has come up but we were inches away from an equaliser and then come away losing 3-1!
Surely that should have been 2-2 rather than a 3-1 defeat? The last goal was a comedy of errors or as one regular fan described it ‘like a sketch from a Benny Hill show’ (you’ll be far too young to know who Benny Hill was, of course!), with the ball pinging around the Tooting & Mitcham goal like a pinball before, with goalie Tyler stranded upfield they kind of walked the ball into the net for 3-1! Your thoughts? I thought it was in to be honest and I was half celebrating - football is a game of small margins and that incident epitomised that!
Ronnie showed his class once again with that goal? Exquisite wasn’t it? He had no right to score from there! We have watched it back and the ball is basically behind him so to generate that much power is quite absurd...thankfully for us it isn’t the first time he has scored those types of goals for us.
I’m going to talk about next Tuesday’s (October 22 – 7.45pm) away trip to Cray Valley Paper Mills. They’ve been flying since we knocked them out of the FA Cup? A good advert, I guess for the South East Counties League that they won last season? Yes they are a good side and we won a poor game against them in the FA cup. They have bolstered their offensive options since we played them with Mfuka and Lisbie spearheading their attack so I am not surprised their results have been positive.
There’s no putting it off any longer mate. FA Cup on Saturday (Church Road – 3pm), how do you feel? I guess the fact it’s arguably the most important day for Whyteleafe FC in recent memory plays a part in you and Calum’s thinking? We can’t wait to be honest. It is an amazing achievement for us to get this far and we look forward to the game ahead - we have nothing to lose and will be looking to take the game to them. We know our players can surprise anyone on their day and we are hoping to achieve that on Saturday.
Let’s be 100 per cent honest here. Most days, with Chippenham Town two leagues above us, they should win? However, this is the FA Cup and the way you have the team playing at the moment you’d hope to give them a proper game? Most certainly we should have no fear. We have young players who have aspirations to play at that level, and hopefully higher, so it is a chance to showcase their ability. We hope the game will be a good spectacle and one which will stay in our fan’s memories for a long time.
Speaking to a few people at the club who know about these things, we could get the biggest attendance at Church Road for over 20-years. It’s worth getting to the ground early, for sure. What’s your message to our fans? You don’t have to go all ‘King Henry V’ on us but take as long as you need for this one! I really hope we get a bumper crowd down to cheer us on. I don’t think I can quite put into words the lift it gave us to have such amazing support against Abbey Rangers in the last round and we are going to need that and more if we are to progress past Chippenham. They will bring around 150 I believe so we want to try and outnumber them at least 2:1. Let’s make our ground a sea of green on Saturday and get Church Road bouncing - the players and staff really appreciate the support and need you Saturday!
We’ll talk more about the ins and outs of the game here next week but from all of us loyal Leafe fans thanks for getting us this far and we’ll be willing you and the boys to cause an upset on Saturday!
