HOLLYFIELD ROAD, home of SUTTON UNITED...

My only previous visit to Sutton United's Hollyfield Road ground involved a schools' soccer tournament in 2001.

Sold Out by Schools' Soccer

It irritates me when schools fail to support the soccer talent at their fingertips. In 2001, the under-10 Primary School team of Bromford Juniors in Birmingham won the city-wide championship. My son Jamie kept goal, they had a tall, strong and dominant outfield player called Danny Mulholland and he was well supported by lads like Matty Green, Shaun Ingram and Jack Deakin. During the finals evening, Bromford didn’t concede a goal and promise was ripe for the next season at under-11 level.

Due to a lack of promotion prospects within the school however, the teacher who coached the team was forced to leave and work elsewhere in the area and despite having two male members of staff who were both interested in football, Bromford didn’t play a single game in Year 6. The headteacher supported Chesterfield and was as unwilling as his maths co-ordinator to run the team during the following season. There was also the case of the Midlands 4-a-side, Sports Argus competition. I volunteered to accompany Bromford’s team but despite being a teacher, I was discouraged from doing so with talk of insurance implications. My ex-wife, who then taught at the infants’ school on the same campus, was keen to be involved too, but even though I asked both the local Saltley area’s soccer secretary and Bromford’s headteacher to at least inform me of the date of the competition, no-one ever did.

Birmingham also ran an inter-district competition and I offered my services to run the Saltley team, for there were enough players known to me in the area to mount a serious challenge to the other, well-established districts, like Aston. I was told that the position had been offered to a decent guy called Carl Glasgow from one of the other local schools and so I stated that I would assist or support him in any way I could. If he should have turned down the position, I asked to be informed thus.

No word came my way and I subsequently found out that the district games had already been played during the spring term. I had previously sent five names of Bromford players to the Saltley secretary with the trials in mind, then by chance, Carl Glasgow’s class of 8 year-olds visited me at Birmingham Museum to study ancient Greece. On chatting with Carl, he admitted that he was not running a district team from Saltley because he had received only 10 names of possible players from around 30 schools, compared to previous experiences in the Aston area where he would have been looking at over 50 candidates.

I was devastated. Not only had my son been denied regular school football in Year 6, but also the opportunity to take part in a prestigious 4-a-side competition, as well as missing out on the chance to have a trial for his district team. So did his team-mates at Bromford.

When I taught in Primary Schools, I always ran two teams, played as many friendly games as I could arrange, gave my better players the opportunity to compete at district level and even ran the East Birmingham area team for one season. It seemed so unfair on Bromford’s promising team. However, I felt like I was whispering in a gale, for no-one took any notice of my offers of help and support and my hands were tied. 

And my own son and his friends suffered...