What makes a great football club?
Is it the ground? I’m told the chairman of a club we visited very recently can’t get his head around why The Dripping Pan keeps winning those Greatest Ground on the Planet awards, because it’s not a patch on his skip-laden, tarmacced-within-an-inch-of-its-life, soulless dustbowl. But no, it’s not the ground alone that makes a great football club.
Is it the players? No, with all due respect and admiration for the thousands of players we’ve had this season down the years – your Brinkys, your Terry Parrises, your Kelly Newtons, your Rhian Cleverlies as the pundits with the funny trainers would say – it’s not players alone that make a great club. Because they often don’t hang around.
Devonte West was last seen walking out of the Rook Inn last night, weighed down by awards. Players’ Player of the Year, Owners’ Player of the Year, Goal of the Season and your very own Supporters Club Player of the Year, which he won by a Vladimir Putin-sized majority. But as Pitts explained when he was dishing out the silverware, Devonte’s off for a trial with Hull City soon. The very best of luck to him, but I fear we’ve got more chance of seeing Bob Hoskins at the Pan next season than we have Devonte.
(By the way, Devonte’s trip to Hull reminded me of this meme that was doing the rounds for Spurs fans in the week.)
So, it’s not the ground, it’s not the players, it’s not the managers, or the values, or the history, or the selection of beers on pump in the clubhouse that make a club great. It’s a combination of all those things, plus the most important ingredient that we’ve yet to mention: it’s the supporters.
When I first came to The Dripping Pan 15-odd years ago, I clocked all of the above (particularly the Harvey’s on tap), but it was the sheer friendliness of the people I met that kept me coming back. And one of the friendliest people I came across in those early weeks was David Arnold, one of my many predecessors as Supporters Club chair.
David’s an extraordinary man: warm, generous, funny. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who loves the club and the town quite as much as David (with the possible exception of his wife Barbara). And so it must have hurt him enormously to have been absent for much of this season through ill health. And that’s why it was a delight to see him and his family back at The Pan yesterday. And he won the Golden Goal, the lucky old bastard…
Also back at The Pan yesterday for the first time in yonks was Brian “The Badge” Ashdown, best known for wandering out on the pitch at full-time, in an outfit only his mother could love, to hand a bottle of merlot to his Man of the Match. Brian’s taking a well deserved break abroad next summer and we wish him safe travels.
Yet, the delight of seeing David and Brian back was marred by the news that the newly crowned Volunteer of the Year, Paul Denny, was unwell. Paul’s one of life’s good eggs, who does a brilliant job welcoming folk in the boardroom, and everyone at the Supporters Club wishes him well. We were also desperately sorry to hear of the passing of Terry Jeffrey in the week. Our condolences to all his friends and family.
Before all those awards were dished out, there was, of course, a game. Both us and Wingate only needed a point to be mathematically safe from the R-word. I’m not suggesting this was the equivalent of the Disgrace of Gijon, where West Germany and Austria played tippy-tappy for about 80 minutes so they would both advance in the World Cup, but let’s just say there’s not much demand for the club to release a DVD of the second half.
We went down early to a sloppy goal, trying to usher a ball out for a goal-kick and instead giving their winger a chance to cross for an easy head home.
Our 42nd minute equaliser had an element of comedy to it. Wingate’s keeper became the first stopper I’ve seen live all season to breach the new eight-second countdown rule, handing us a corner. This season, we’ve been about as dangerous as a Kinder Egg from corners, but the move ended with Krokhin The Barbarian heading the ball back across goal for Charlie Paye to nod home.
We could have been 2-1 up before the break, too, when Bobby Unwin’s shot smacked off the post and was finished off by this week’s left-back Jackson King. A killjoy lino ruled it out for offside.
And so there’s only one men’s game left in a season which, Pitts admitted afterwards, hasn’t been good enough. Some/much of that disruption hasn’t been the manager’s fault: he’s had to deal with an awful lot of turbulence since he came back in the autumn. The club desperately needs a period of calm. Let’s hope the women’s takeover is settled soon, one way or the other, so we can all get on with next season, whatever it might bring.
Lewes: Rogers, Bernal, Paye, Krokhin, King (Kpakpe), Allen, Christian-Law, Booth (Richardson), Unwin, West (Bassett), Walker (Roberts)
Unused sub: Watson
Supporters Club man of the match: Louis Rogers made a couple of great saves, and pulled off a party trick by heading the ball past an attacker, before beating another man in the second half. The cheeky boy.