When it turns to October you start to think of colder times, darker days and by the end of the month the floodlights coming on for Saturday afternoon games, although possibly not too often this year. So to get another game played in glorious autumn sunshine is always a bonus before the winter coats and hats really come into play!
Saturday’s trip was to Imber Court, the home of Met Police, but not a team full of policemen these days! A team whose results I look out for as their programme editor Colin Weston (@followthetrawler) has taken my work for three seasons running, must be doing something right there and I really appreciate that.
Putting names to faces when you go to grounds, people you’ve conversed with on Twitter for a few months or longer, it’s becoming one of those kinds of seasons where there’s someone somewhere at every ground you seem to go to, the non-league football family.
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I did see the Met in pre-season at Carshalton Athletic, back in that hot July spell of weather, still sunny on the first day of October but no need for numerous drinks breaks this time around.
I’ve certainly seen my fair share of FA Cup action this season already but this time the opportunity of an upset with National League South Chippenham Town the visitors to Surrey.
With Town enduring a nightmare journey it almost wasn’t surprising to see the Met settle more quickly and should have been in front inside the first minute, Josh Keeya finding a little space inside the box but also finding Will Henry’s far post, the ball rebounding to Herson Alves who blasted over from about four yards out.
With Chippenham looking for the diagonal ball both sides out to their wingers the home side covered this pretty well and also any balls that did make it into the box as Town were certainly not finding it easy against their lower division opponents.
The home side netted the opening goal of the game on 23 minutes, a couple of loose balls finally saw it land at the feet of Keeya and with what looked like the help of a slight deflection the ball beat Henry to give The Met the lead.
Not surprisingly the visitors got more and more into the game and poured forward looking for the equaliser, with The Met looking to play on the counter with the pace from Keeya and Alves and the wing play of Conor Lee but neither side added to the opening goal, a lack of clear cut chances very evident.
Being the National League South side you would have expected Town to really go at it in the second half and they did just that. They were level within a minute of the kick off, skipper Spencer Hamilton with a free header from an early corner putting the visitors in the game.
The Met seemed content to defend from their own half and once again try and use the pace to counter attack but Town seemed a lot more wise to it this half and home attacks were few and far between, as the ball went forward it came straight back again very quickly.
From one of the very few chances for the home side in the second half Tom Read couldn’t connect properly in front of goal and you knew that with a slim amount of chances you have to take them especially against higher opposition.
And of course if you don’t they can invariably make you pay and Town did just that eight minutes from time, Kane Badbury with a controlled volley after the ball flicked up into his path to give Chippenham the lead.
They comfortably saw out the final minutes plus stoppage time as The Met ran out of time and energy in what was more than a decent display against National League South opposition, but that extra bit of quality showed in the end.
With the National League big guns coming into the next round Met will feel an opportunity missed but Chippenham will hope for one of those or maybe even a lesser opposition and a place in the 1st Round Proper.
Whilst on the subject of meeting a few people as mentioned above, I managed to encounter another of the Twitterati, Dave Read (@wanderintractor) and his friend Nick whose company we spent the 90 minutes in, another blogger on the non-league scene (www.wanderingtractor.co.uk) and some great knowledge between the pair of them.
That’s one thing I loved more over the past couple of seasons especially, there’s always a story, a person to meet and more to find out, if the game isn’t quite panning out there’s just something beside you to remind you that it wouldn’t have happened at plenty of other places, onto the next one!
