The FA cup doesn’t just begin when the Premier League teams enter in the 3rd Round proper. It began last month with the First Qualification Round.

In the truest traditions of the grassroots tournament, we are following a side from the outset and hope to stay with them and be at their games, or those of the side who eliminate them, all the way to Wembley.

This site already sponsors the manager of Carlisle City, James Nichols. So in the interests of geographical balance, we selected a club at the other end of the nation, Portsmouth’s own Moneyfields FC. Our assistant editor Conor Smith claims to have played against their reserves for Netley which may have influenced our choice. 

The decision was cemented by their opposition Aylesbury United. The Ducks are a club with an FA Cup pedigree, who currently play their home games in Chesham, agonisingly far from their own Buckinghamshire home town, but agonisingly close to Wembley which is where this story ends next May.

So we started our series, “Moneyfields to Wembley“ with their visit to Aylesbury United, the Ducks, now playing their home games at the Meadows, home of Chesham United.

The Moneys progressed but lost 6-2 at home to Cray Wanderers in the 2nd qualification round as Jacob Tanswell reports.

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Moneyfields 2 : 6 Cray Wanderers

An FA Cup dream may be over, but at least there was a crowd to watch.

It was 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon and this writer was queuing up at the turnstiles, still smoothing in the remaining droplets of hand sanitiser given to him at the station moments earlier.

Before too long I had reached the front of the queue and was handed a ticket, a little like one you would receive at a raffle. I’m not sure why they supply one to you after paying, especially when you get to sit or stand anywhere, but hey-ho, I was in the ground.

Cray Valley Paper Mills complete Cray double with shock 5-1 win at Harrow Borough

As I stepped through the rusted turnstiles that last saw a lick of paint in yester-year, an overwhelming sense of calm overtook me. 

Unperturbed, I tilted my head in shock. This wasn’t the new normal, this was the normal.

I was now in the stadium, facing pitch side. To the left of me was a singular stand, and to the right a tea hut. Opposite me was the other side of the pitch, encompassed by dulled white railings surrounding the perimeter. 

Even further beyond the railings were the two teams, Moneyfields and Cray Wanderers, who were heading out to start their warm up. They were going through the various motions on a different stretch of grass, clearly mindful of needlessly hampering the pitch before the game had even begun.  

Next, I looked at my phone. There was no strong WiFi.  Nor was there a table, just for my own personal use, with electrical plugs, all different shapes and sizes that would  keep alive the differing gadgets I religiously bring when covering a football game. I quickly realised the laptop in my bag would be made redundant.

The pitch wasn’t delicately cut to crest perfection or provided a smooth outline of paint to mark the pitch out. There wasn’t an abundance of stewards gazing my every move, ensuring I followed the regimented protocols  this current society has to contend with.

Despite of all of that and the removal of luxury at a football stadium – something i’d grown to be rather accustomed too in my snobbish ways – I felt a sense of normality had returned. It felt like the clock had rewound back to February and the word ‘Coronavirus’ may have been a term you would use when your mate got drunk and subsequently ill, perhaps down to guzzling too many of those branded beers.

At last, there were fans.

I was attending my first game with supporters in a ground and no matter how you dress it up or how lucky you are to be one of the very few that is able to attend a Premier League game amidst a pandemic, this felt extraordinary. Actual fans. At an actual football match.

Supporters, albeit socially distanced, were ambling about pre-game and going through the usual rigmarole that ensues when you’re early to kick-off. Some were taking stock of the opposition, some were looking outwards onto the playing surface. A few were talking about the game and how their week in general, had gone. They say it is the simple things in life that give you the most pleasure in life, ain’t that true.

Of course they were still following the government guidelines, as the husky, razor-sharp sounding tannoy would remind us, but they hardly seemed to stick out. Just for a few hours or so, I didn’t have to be given an incessant prompt that we were living during a seismic health crisis.

Aesthetically, I was just watching a customary game of football, that happened to be an FA cup fixture. 

So when I entered the ground, it felt different because there were fans. When I looked to the left of me, there were fans sitting in the stands. When I looked to the right, there were fans queuing for their tea at the hut. When I looked in front of me, there were fans, opposite, leaning on the dulled railings. 

The ground was teeming with chatter and natter and a general distinct energy that is instantly palpable. If those sounds or feelings weren’t there, it would be an altogether different place. Supporters were the lick of paint, the sugar in the tea the ground needed.

Talking of beverages, I then decided to head to the clubhouse bar and took a seat in front of the TV. Working the table service app was somewhat troublesome, but in all fairness, it was going to be my only relationship with technology that day. Although it seemed to take an eternity for my order to go through – the entirety of fault can lay on my own behalf – it beat ogling at the laptop screen all afternoon.

The 30 or so people in the clubhouse were watching the Chelsea-Crystal Palace game, but when I say ‘watching’, I mean occasionally peering up to glance at the score before returning to their own conversations, and sometimes leaning around to join another table’s.

For all repercussions the imposed lockdown created and caused, you got the feeling from the two or more dozen fans in the room that there was an overwhelming sense of making up for lost time. They hadn’t seen their friends from the football all that often in the past 6 months, so they were sure going to talk about it. 

Lockdown caused loneliness, isolation. Social interaction was at its bare minimum or exclusively through the eyes of a phone or a laptop. At Moneyfields Sports Ground, it couldn’t have been more stark. While it was only my first ever visit to the ground, you were made to feel welcome.

You were all there for the same purpose, all to enjoy the same thing. Football, even in an uncertain world, is simply a must. It brings people together, encourages communities and provides club’s yearning riches to ensure they simply survive.

Football has an innate brilliance of forming connections. That may be establishing a bond with a stranger, perhaps someone you have have never even met before. As soon as the first talking point of the game transpires, the pair of you may share an opinion or on a good day, a joke.

Suddenly you feel like you’ve known that person all your life, despite not even knowing their name. When you go home, you may struggle to describe that stranger, which is a little embarrassing, really, especially after you’ve spent a few hours cheering, celebrating and occasionally hugging that person after a goal.

On the other side to you, may be another total stranger, who you would never dare to talk to in everyday life. But once again, you form a connection. The three of you now becomes a fortnightly ritual, meeting at the same place, meeting at the same time. The two strangers now have turned your band of footballing brothers. 

I finished my tea, told the guy on the next table “see you later,” after a brief chat on what we were expecting to see at 3pm and headed out to take my seat. 

I might have been watching Harry Kane in the flesh last week, and Kevin De Bruyne a few months before that, but this was the only game where my head wasn’t buried in a laptop screen or in a handheld device. I just sat there and took everything in, whether that was the action that was occurring in front or behind the dulled, white railings. It reminded me of what used to happen when I went to football matches with family and friends. Again, I did say it’s the simple things in life.

Even though the match more than lived up to expectations, I wasn’t really too concerned on how entertaining the game would be, admittedly somewhat unusual for a sports writer to say. I just wanted to absorb those feelings for a little while longer, yes, I really was at a game with fans. 

Moneyfields’ dream of Wembley came to a crashing halt after they hammered 6-2 by a vastly superior side in all departments.

Cray were seriously impressive, moving the ball was a delicacy and poise, possessing an expansive shape and possessional game that would perfectly intertwine.

Aside from a header that was bundled over the line, the other five goals wouldn’t have looked out of place much higher up the footballing pyramid.

Trailing 1-4 at half-time, the second-half was damage limitation for Moneyfields. They noticeably dropped deeper to stop an attacking Cray quartet of ripping through the heart of their defence anymore. They failed on two more occasions.

Towards the end of the game, a season ticket holder told me the attendance was more than double what they would usually get. “Because it’s an FA Cup game,” he said.

The final whistle blew and fans began trickling out of the ground. Their team had lost but they didn’t really take the heavy defeat to heart. They were back, watching their team again. Each one of them knew they were outplayed and outclassed; afterwards they told me so. “Sometimes all you can do is hold your hands up,” one admitted.

I have to hold my hands up too, I didn’t realise watching a football match with fans would have felt so reassuring.

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