Saturday 5th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Counties East League Division One

MERIDIAN V.P. 1 (Sowah 26)

TOOTING BEC 2 (James 10 Robinson 90+4)

Att 160 (Club Record)

Entry £8

Programme £2.50

Perception in all things is everything. When you organise events at Steps 5 & 6, and let’s face it GroundhopUk has plenty of experience at this level, you do expect a certain level of uniformity, mainly due to FA ground gradings. What that doesn’t mean is the clubs, or their aspirations will be similar.

You saw it here in Charlton, on an unseasonally warm day. Robyn and I had visited Meridian Valley Park 4 years ago and saw similar to what we saw here. A club with a small band of highly committed volunteers making use of a former works ground. The team plays in front of tiny crowds, Robyn and I were 2 of a total of 14 last time, and the aim is survival at this level, and that is year after year, season after season.

From a groundhop perspective we knew that whatever catering would be provided by the sports and social club, it was very good, but did the football club benefit? All the minutiae found on a hop the club did well, but the I looked at the crowd, realised I knew the majority of people there and winced.

I shouldn’t have, that was close to inevitable given Meridian’s attendances, and it turned out the 162 there represented the biggest attendance to have ever witnessed a Meridian home game. Jaded I might have been, and concerned after Robyn had tripped over walking from the coach to the ground, but I am rather proud of what we managed to do and hopefully help a friendly club from south-east London.

Sadly this season is proving to be a disaster for the team, as a I type this Meridian have played 14 games and failed to register a single point. I suspect this game was as close as they’ve got so far, if only the referee had played slightly less injury time!

To finish, here’s a thought on football’s pecking order. You could argue that the club that were the eventual wrong end of Wimbledon’s move to Milton Keynes was Tooting Bec. The theory goes that AFC Wimbledon were formed playing in to Kingston with Chelsea Women eventually displacing Kingstonian, they moved to (via Leatherhead and Corinthian-Casuals) Tooting & Mitcham therefore displacing Tooting Bec who currently groundshare at rather distance Chipstead FC! I bet Pete Winkleman didn’t foresee that….