Look what I found.

[frakey]

We opted out of our affiliation to the London FA at the end of the 83/4 season. It was decided that a decent run in this competition caused fixture backlogs and little (if any) financial reward, indeed more likely a balance defecit.

To compete in the FA Cup, any club has to affiliate to a County/Provincial FA - hence Crystal Palace competing in the SSC. Sutton, logically, chose Surrey.

[Beaney]

Thanks

[DaveF]

Wellie, the game at Upton Park was in the London Challenge Cup, which I think you got invited to enter by reaching the London Charity Cup Final. There were so many cups in the 60s, I believe we still have an outstanding South Thames Cup tie to play from about 30 years ago !

[wellie]

Thanks for that Co Sec ihad forgotten some of the Cups.Its a wonder we got any bloody league matches played!

[Del]

I'm sure fans didn't queue all night for the Leeds game but i remember a long queue, i believe on a sunday morning.About an hour and a half i waited.The floodlight opening game against Arsenal was not all ticket but had a good crowd. We used to draw a regular home attendance of some 2000 in the 60's even without promotion and relegation.The potential is always there in Sutton if we played at a higher level.Unfortunately we lost a lot of fans to Wimbledon and subsequently AFC.

[wellie]

According to the Sutton Herald the q started long before midnight and before 8am there were 5000 in the q.Many Leeds fans also arrived at 8am to try and buy tickets as they had missed out on their allocation of 3000. Ticket office opened early at 11.30.
A Mr Gordon Bell of Fredrick Road said he had arrived at the Ground at 2am and there was already a Q and had to wait till midday to buy his ticket.By 3pm people were paying touts £3 for a 10 shilling ticket!
A photograph on the front of the Herald shows the first two in the q with their tickets.A Mr Dave Lovell and Mr Colin West who had arrived before Midnight.
After 4hrs of selling there were still about 1000 outside the ground who had not been able to buy a ticket.
For the younger ones 10 shillings is 50 pence.The top price stand ticket cost 25 shillings or £1.25 in todays money.

[frakey]

With you there Wellie, the q did start during the early hours (I think I may have stated so in my article on the match last season). The Frakes got there earlier enough & still had to start q'ing halfway up Norman Road.

As for commanding a gate of 2,000 these days Delboy, we didn't manage anything near that when we were doing well in the late 80's so I suggest you are being a tad optimistic there!

The 60's was another era, there were less alternative attractions than there are now and no live footy on the box either side of the sat afternoon fixtures.

If we ever vaeraged a 1,000 at home in a season in the near future I would both be amazed and ecstatic at the same time.

[Del]

Maybe a little optimistic frakey but most seasons in the conference we were struggling and the season we broke into the top six our crowds noticably increased.The london borough of Sutton has a big catchment area and a lot of people don't even know we have a team at this level.
We won't average a 1000 a season playing in the Ryman but if we were to be challenging in Conference South we wouldn't be far short.

[frakey]

I'm basing my comments on recent (?) - 20 years - past history of our average gates. And I don't call finishing 7th, 8th & 13th plus a couple of historic cup runs as struggling!!

[Del]

Agreed we didn't struggle at the end of the seasons but you may recall we usualy started off badly as we were waiting for Macca to return from Sweden.Always good crowds for the cup games and even the Bob Lord trophy was well supported. I believe it will take time to rebuild our supporters base and if we start well this coming season i'm positive are crowds will be up on last season.

[os]

I have just been doing Video editing of Season 1990-91 seems we were only averaging @800 (our support rather than away fans) in the Conference. I think I read somewhere that the club sent a letter of concern back in the 40s or 50s expressing concern that crowds had dropped below 3000 or something like that?

A question for Mark, is the 12 sec loss of our keeper (at Colchester 1990/1) a record? I cannot ever remember any team losing one so quickly.

[taz]

TBH, if we can just get crowds back to around the 800 mark I'd be well pleased!

[Del]

So would the chairman!

[DaveF]

The Chairman is an accountant.......he already thinks the crowds are up around 800 ;D;)

[oohaah]

A question for Mark, is the 12 sec loss of our keeper (at Colchester 1990/1) a record? I cannot ever remember any team losing one so quickly.

I well remember the cheer that went up from the home support when the referee called for a stretcher - I've hated the scum ever since