Wait until next year

I like to try to make at least one FA Cup game each season. I find it amazing that we still have a tournament where the smallest clubs in the country are in the same competition as some of the biggest clubs in the world.

Early qualifying rounds are a chance to feel part of something bigger – genuinely you are on the Road to Wembley. You are witnessing a small part of a much larger story, one that will play out over a whole season. Some people choose to follow the competition round-by-round picking a team at the start to watch and then following the winner of each fixture they see, right up to the final.

For all that, it does feel a little peculiar that the non-league season starts with a glut of cup fixtures, at least for those lucky enough to progress, a fun run of games to have for sure, but a mixed blessing for any team looking to make a good start in the league.

And this game was not just about the magic of the FA Cup but was also a chance to see two teams in the same division face off and to see they might progress, or otherwise, this season.

VCD have a great ground, as you enter you pass a bowls green and a tennis club, a reminder that this was once a much larger sports ground for local munitions workers. The footballers still change in something that looks suspiciously like a cricket pavilion. The clubhouse feels like a proper clubhouse, a pubby feel, not too bright, with trophies, old team photos and a league ladder adorning the walls, along with the obligatory dartboard, pool table and Sky Sports screens. Some clubhouses can feel a little cold, with bright white walls and too bright lighting, more like a leisure centre lobby than a place to anticipate a win or commiserate a loss. Yet VCD’s clubhouse gets it right, it is homely, lived in.

Once you pass through the turnstiles, if you can resist the tea bar, you are led down a slope to pitchside, and there’s something really pleasing about how the pitch opens up to you like that at the bottom of the hill. There’s a stand on one side, and then roofed standing all alongside the other side – a great place to watch football as you are sheltered from the elements and the low roof magnifies the sound too. All of these features help hem in the ground on what is a pretty large piece of land, enclosing it in a way that helps give the place some focus and identity.

On to the game itself, and Sittingbourne would have considered themselves very unlucky not to win, but VCD certainly battled well to stay in the game the way they did. A penalty after 15 seconds was a hell of a start for Sittingbourne, as most of the crowd were still filing into the ground and milling around the tea bar. However, Frankie Leonard made a tremendous save to keep it out, followed up by an equally good reaction save from the rebound. Sittingbourne would go on to hit the woodwork three times and miss another penalty before Ellis Brown finally put them in front late in the game. 

Sittingbourne look like they could be a force to contend with in the league this year, strong, focused and able to attack on the break at pace. There were moments where it felt like they and their supporters were getting frustrated at not being ahead. And I felt that in some ways gave VCD some hope that they could get something out of a game they were still in with a shout of winning. There’s that certain kind of promise from hearing an opponent getting increasingly exasperated despite being on top, that maybe they are focused too much on perceived injustices rather than the game at hand and might soon have something to be genuinely fed up about. 

That VCD were able to stay in the game and frustrate Sittingbourne for so long is an encouraging sign for them. They play good football, are coached well and seem to have got a good balance between maintaining some continuity by retaining their core squad and recruiting the kind of quality players who will offer something new. If they can build on the determination and skill they showed in patches in this game they could surprise a few people this season. They just need a little more consistency and concentration over the 90 minutes. 

So, the game ended 1-0, a fair result, but I can also imagine both dressing rooms might have spent some time contemplating if they should have got more from the game – that Sittingbourne should have put away their chances, and VCD should have maybe tightened things up more at the back and could have nicked something at the end. But it was a good day’s football, and a proper FA Cup tie. Now, to concentrate on the league…