Ex-GTFC players thread

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Tooting & Mitcham 4 Guernsey 1. Isthmian (Ryman) Division One South. Entrance £10. Attendance 221 ( Est 50 Guernsey fans) Ground number 164 (only 7 of which have not been for a Grimsby Town game) Having originally planned a few months ago to visit relatives to take in our away game at Woking that game was called off due to our involvement in The FA Trophy but thought I would take the opportunity to visit a new ground. I did have the offer of going to Chelsea but as I have been there before chose to go and watch Guernsey whose progress I have loosely follow since they came into the league pyramid.A bet a London based Grimsby fan Baz in Wetherspoons in Wimbledon and had a couple of pints in there before heading off to get closer to the ground.  Having been told that there were a few pubs around Mitcham Cricket Green we headed there after getting off the tram at Mitcham.

We came to the first pub, the strangely named Burn Bullock but this was closed and fenced off, however there was another pub across the road but this was closed down too. We then saw another pub sign at the other end of the cricket green, The Queens Head but as we got nearer we saw that this pub was closed and boarded up too. We then decided to walk the 10 minutes to the ground but on the way came across a thai restaurant which also had a public bar, so we nipped in there for a couple before making the short walk to the sports complex where Tooting & Mitcham play. I was very surprised at the set up there and the ground itself was quite good and on a par with some grounds in The National League and definitely better that Guiseley!  We found the club bar and got chatting to a couple of Guernsey directors, one of which was Matt Le Tissier's older brother. They told us that their players do not get paid at all and that they still have to cover the costs of visiting teams. About 20 Guernsey fans had come over with the team on the plane but there must have been about 50 Guernsey fans there as there was obviously quite a few now living on the mainland. I was pleasantly surprised when in their bar a pint of lager and a pint of cider was only £6 which was very reasonable for the London area. I was also pleasantly surprised when the barman informed us that we could take our drinks into the ground if we put them in a plastic glass, which we did. I'm not sure at what level the law comes into force that you cannot drink in view of the pitch but as you are not allowed to at a Cleethorpes Town of Grimsby Borough game I was surprised that you could here which (I think) is 2 levels above.

Although Tooting & Mitcham play in black and white I was cheering on Guernsey and they started the game well and took a deserved lead. Tooting soon equalised though with a goal by an ex-Mariner Serge Makofo and at half-time the score was 1 all with Guernsey being the better team. The second half was a different story though and T&M dominated and scored 3 more goals, including another one from Makofo who had a decent game to be fair. After the game we went back into the club bar and spoke with the Guernsey directors again and a few fans.The game was very entertaining (it received a 5 star rating in the NPL this morning and I was quite impressed at the quality of some of the football on show.  All in all a great day out apart from the fact we came across 3 pubs all within a couple of hundred yards of each other that were all closed down. Maybe a trip to Guernsey itself beckons sometime.