Surrey I Haven't a Clue

I had been tempted to go to bed early and ignore the New Year but having waited until midnight to see the it in and catch a short snippet of Jools Holland's hootabloodynanny I decided to reward myself with a visit to Sutton. It was a grey, grey day but the clangour of St Paul's as I strolled towards City Thameslink (such an evocative name for a station, they really should have stuck with Ludgate Circus) put me in a proper New Yearsy kinda mood. As previously mentioned Sutton United do evoke a certain cup romance due to their giantkilling exploits against Coventry City over 20 years ago and although most of the terraces behind the goals have gone it is still recognisably the same ground. Train timetables meant I had plenty of time to hoover up the atmosphere. Sutton certainly seems to be a proper community club where everyone knows each other but this South London/Surrey derby against Tooting & Mitcham United obviously doesn't hold quite the same attraction as the Carshalton-Sutton one. Nevertheless the Tooting travelling fans were out in force and unlike Sutton at Carshalton made a very good job of making themselves heard all through the game. Before the game though we got treated to Sutton's mascot:

This is Jenny, she is a giraffe. That is all the explanation I have. 

Due to the cold and incessant drizzle I gave up on the camera before kick off . But I grabbed a couple of shots of the grounds filling up.

I really wanted to warm to Sutton but nothing on the pitch really enticed me (efficient but not overly attractive) and I have to sympathise a little with the Carshalton view regarding the noisiness of their fans. Tooting on the other hand were good value and look to have  a little more potential than their league position would suggest. They dominated and were unlucky to go two down against the run of play but managed to pull one back just before the break. By the time that Tooting missed a penalty midway through the second half it seemed that Sutton would hold on to their lead in spite of a degree of niggle working its way into the game. Mostly from Sutton in my view and the Tooting fans were placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Sutton No. 2

3 minutes into injury time Tooting finally managed to capitalise on one of the opportunities they had created in the second to send their fans into raptures. One leapt over the fence and proceeded to celebrate on the touchline at which point stewards and police intervened. No, sorry, this is non-league football, what actually happened was that the Tooting players all piled on and celebrated on top of him.

So I scratched my Sutton itch and am genuinely pleased to be able to say I've seen a game at Gander Green Lane. I have a funny feeling though that I will be visiting Tooting before I return to Sutton.