FA Cup Fever - AFC Hayes Preview

AFC Hayes v Hendon

FA Cup 1^st Qualifying Round

Saturday 17^th September 2011

Farm Park

I have a love / hate relationship with FA Competitions. I love the FA Cup, I hate the FA Trophy. We have a decent recent history in the FA Cup, we have an appalling record in the FA Trophy no matter which angle you choose to look at it from, even upside down. The last 2 seasons in the FA Cup have seen us progress to the final qualifying round and in the case of last season, beyond. Even though seeing us drawn live on ITV away at Chelmsford was enormously anti-climactic, the day out was great. I heard one fan describe the tie pre-match as being as ‘tough as Sheffield Wednesday away, but with none of the glamour’. He wasn’t too far wrong. We put up a decent performance, although aided perhaps a little by the red card shown to the Chelmsford goalkeeper, in what was a pretty thrilling contest but fell a little short. Still, the cup run brought in much needed revenue, as the run to the 4^th Qualifying Round did in 2009/10 when we were humbled (or outclassed) by Woking 5-0 at Vale Farm.

We begin this season’s trek towards the ultimate goal of an appearance a mile and a half down the road on the 182 at Wembley’s 2^nd stadium in May with a short journey to meet AFC Hayes, or as I like to call them, AFC Brook Hayes. (Punnery at 11.03am, a new low). The sides have met on a couple of occasions competitively, most recently in the final of the Middlesex Senior Cup at Northwood in April 2009. Despite dominating much of the game, the Greens were made to pay for their missed chances as two former Hendon trialists Victor Osobu and Dean Papali scored to give the side formerly known as Brook House what is to date, their only Middlesex Senior Cup win.

If only he hadn't hit the bar at Blackpool, this dream would definitely have become reality for Bontcho

The side formerly known as Brook House were formed as recently as 1974 originally as a pub side in the Hayes and District Sunday League working their way up from the 7^th Division. 8 years later another local team, Grange FC moved to Brook House’s new ground at Farm Park and the two sides merged to become Brook House FC, playing their games on Saturday afternoons in the now defunct South West Middlesex League. In 1984 they became founder members of the Middlesex County Football league and 4 years later moved to the Spartan League. In their first season, they achieved promotion to the Premier Division where they remained until 2004 when they achieved promotion to the Ryman League Division 2. 30 years from the bottom division of the local Sunday league to step 5 of the Non League pyramid is a rise bordering on meteoric.

As Hayes merged with Yeading to become Hayes & Yeading United, so Brook House became AFC Hayes and moved across to begin the 2006/7 season in the Southern League after restructuring where they have remained ever since, receiving a reprieve from relegation at the end of 2009/10 due to various clubs going under.

Their best run in the FA Cup came in 2005/6 when they reached the 2^nd qualifying round. Victory tomorrow will give them the chance to equal that record and with Hendon defending an unbeaten record so far this season this tie has all the makings of a banana skin. After an up and down start to the season, the side have settled down nicely and go into the game with 4 wins on the trot under their belt, including in the previous round where they beat Tring Athletic 4-2. They boast some experience and relatively familiar faces amongst their ranks with former Hendon defender Gilbert Nuako, who has had plenty of experience in the Blue Square South with Hayes & Yeading, Dennis Maharjan who has scored goals from midfield for Edgware, Leyton and Enfield Town amongst others, Trevor Charlery, son of former Watford striker Ken, Dean Papali and Kevin Chakadoza, both of whom have appeared for the Greens at one time or another in pre-seasons past.

With Isaiah Rankin likely to have been added to the ever growing injury list at Vale Farm, options for Gary Mac to change the side around a little look pretty limited. He’s added another striking option to the ranks in the shape of Joel Greaves, who has had plenty of experience south of the river and was described by Rakki Hudson as a ‘goal machine’ on Twitter. ‘Joel the Goal’ or ‘Goal-king Joel’ have quite nice rings to them. The webmasters can have them in the bank for free. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the squad tomorrow, particularly with Daryl Atkins cup-tied after his goal filled exploits so far with Wembley (11 goals in 8 appearances for the record). Elsewhere around the side, I don’t expect there to be too many changes, if any, from Tuesday evening.

On paper, I would expect Hendon to come away with a reasonably comfortable win, but football isn’t played on paper, it’s played on grass (just to eradicate any doubt). If the Greens match the AFC Hayes players for commitment and effort then the extra quality we have ought to come to the fore. I’m sure Gary Mac will have the players’ minds focused, not that motivation should be much of an issue. Many of the players will have experienced the highs that accompany a good cup run, the optimism, the increased media attention and at this level, such exposure doesn’t come around very often. Additionally, defeats to lower division opposition in the competition are rarer than a Cristiano Ronaldo pass within 40 yards of goal. In my time watching Hendon, the only one I can remember was when Met Police arrested our progress at the first hurdle a few years back.

In actual fact, looking through the archive on the website the 1^st stage of the FA Cup has given me some good chuckles, and some Hendon players their career highs.

• 1995/6: Beating Flackwell Heath 8-0, Phil Gallagher looked vaguely like a half decent centre forward scoring twice. 57 year old Geoff Pike also netted a classy free kick but they all played second fiddle to Junior Haynes who netted a hat-trick, failed to have a penalty saved for a change, and injured himself celebrating his 3^rd goal.
• 2000/1: Davis Haule seeing red in the 3-2 win over St Margaretsbury in a game that was filmed and then seeing Frank Murphy’s face fall in the post-match interview when he was told that the camera had missed the incident because a pillar obscured the cameraman’s view. Davis was subsequently fined for lamping the St Margaretsbury player in such a silly area of the pitch.
• 2002/3: Rob Haworth finally netting his first goals in a Green shirt after what felt like the best part of 4 dozen efforts failing to find the target in the first 6 weeks of the season against Tooting & Mitcham
• 2003/4: Iain Duncan diving full length at the far post to beat James Courtnedge with a header of all things in our 4-0 win over Enfield. Reports of a sighting of Shergar in the crowd were never validated.
• 2004/5: Martin Vrhovski’s ahem, ‘man of the match’ performance that included a late late winner against the giants of Holmer Green.
• 2005/6: Mark Burgess over hitting a clearance from the edge of the Biggleswade United penalty area into the top corner of the net for the first ever goal scored by one of the Burgess twins at any level, including back garden kick-abouts.
• 2006/7: Just a win. 4-0 against Arlesey.

So as you can see, tomorrow has quite a lot to live up to. I have no doubt that it will…

Just one final thing before I go, anyone interested in finding out what happened to Martin Vrhovski might want to check out the Facebook game I AM PLAYR and have a close look at the assistant manager / coach.