As promised yesterday, today we bring you an article from issue 10 of WIE (August 1994). It’s from the pen (as it was in those days) of Tim who, even then, had established himself as our lead feature writer. Which, almost certainly, isn’t a role he set out to achieve but one we were more than happy to bestow upon him.

And, you will see that with the last sentence, Tim was somewhat prophetic. For Steve Barnes and Danny Smith read their teammate Steve Finnan who also (somehow) played for the Republic of Ireland at the 2002 World Cup. But that’s another story.

Anyway, here it is in its full glory…

The World Cup 94; WIE Style

Sick of the World Cup? You’ve read the magazines, you’ve watched the matches, you’ve read the papers, you’ve listened to the pundits. You’ve been bored to death by the opinions of your non-football watching mates. Well, tough luck! Because here it is. The story of “Welling United and USA 94”.

Admittedly, trying to link world class football to the fortunes of a mediocre Conference side has been pretty tricky. But success has at last been achieved, now you too can irritate people you know in true John Motson fashion by showing them the proof that two of the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup squad were former Welling players. Below is reprinted the team sheet from the FA Youth Cup 1^st Round tie of 1^st November 1978. And there they are, at numbers 8 and 9; Andy Townsend and Tony Cascarino.

What odds could you have got in 1978 on the likelihood of Welling producing two such players? The conversation at the bookies would have been a good one:

Punter: Good morning, my fine young bookmaker.

Bookmaker: Good morning Sir. How can I help you?

Punter: Well, so impressed was I by the performance of the brave young colts of Welling United last night in their unfortunate 1-0 defeat at the hands of Gillingham, that I am prepared to place a small wager.

BM: Indeed, sir.

Punter: The goodly sum of £5 says that two of those players will represent their country 16 years hence in the World Cup finals.

BM (coughing): Really sir?

Punter: Yes, really. One will be that Italian one who got himself sent off for fighting.

BM: And he will play for Italy?

Punter: No, the Republic of Ireland.

BM (incredulous): The Republic of Ireland?

Punter: Most certainly. And the other will be that Townsend fellow.

BM: And he will play for England?

Punter: No. No. No. England won’t even qualify. No, Townsend will play for Ireland too. Although he is, in fact, English.

BM: I see, sir.

Punter: And the finals themselves will be in America.

BM: Hmmm!

Punter: So, what odds, my good man?

BM: Well, let me see. Two Welling players playing in the World Cup for the Republic of Ireland. In America. And England don’t even qualify. Now, if it hadn’t been for the fact that you said England will fail to qualify I would have assumed that all this was just a mad fantasy, such as that of people betting that the earth is flat, or that Welling will one day have a covered end. But with you revealing that England won’t qualify I can only assume that you have some inside information and can offer you no better than 5-1.

Punter: 5-1? Bollocks to that. I’m off.

It is well known that Andy Townsend spent five years here at Park View Road, whereas Tony Cascarino is less well known as a Welling player. And that is how it should be, for Townsend is a good player, whereas the name “Cascarino” tends to make fans of certain clubs (Chelsea, Aston Villa, Celtic) crawl away in embarrassment. Indeed, it is almost possible for Welling to disown Cascarino altogether. Because he never appeared in the Wings first team, making instead just a handful of appearances at Youth team level. In season 78/79, when the above game was played, Welling were not running a regular youth side, playing just in the FA Youth and Kent Youth Cups, together with the odd friendly. To fulfil these fixtures Welling put out a side containing a mixture of first team fringe players and lads borrowed from a local side who were given the use of Park View Road on Sunday mornings (a team which included Cascarino). So, technically, Cascarino could be said to be a loan player, rather than a fully-fledged Wing, and thus we, too, can laugh at him for being swapped for a set of tracksuits when moving from Crockenhill to Gillingham.

Looking down the Welling team sheet; Dave Walton played regularly for our first team in the Spartan and Athenian Leagues, before breaking his leg and being replaced by that great comedian, Kevin Everitt. John Hope never became more than a fringe player and disappeared off to Alma Swanley. Townsend can be said to have made it, the jury is still out on Cascarino, and nothing is known of the others (they weren’t in the Wings’ youth team the following season).

On the Gillingham side, at number 2 is Colin Ford, who moved to the Wings and became our regular right back for several years. At 13 is Micky Adams, who is still playing professional football after a career at Leeds, Coventry and Southampton, and the S. Bruce at number 4 is Steve Bruce, who has, apparently, gone on to play on a larger stage than Park View Road. And, again, the whereabouts of the others are unknown.

Sixteen years have gone by, and we have another youth team. What odds will you give me for Steve Barnes and Danny Smith playing for Wales in the year 2010?

Tim

It’s Thursday, we’re still in lockdown, so that means it’s time for another delve into the WIE archive. And next up is Issue 10 from the start of the 1994/95 season. This was a 28-page affair that was put together by just three contributors; Terry Tim and yours truly. Oh, and a couple of letter writers. A fixture card was provided as a free gift; what were we thinking?!

The beginning of a new football season is usually a time for general optimism, but that wasn’t the case at PVR. This was reflected by the front cover, which was our comment on the close season that had seen the departure of some key members of the playing squad. And my editorial did nothing to lighten the mood along that theme.

Next up was Tim’s account of the away days from the previous season, which started with a 2-0 win at Woking (which put us temporarily, of course, top of the league) and finished with a pathetic 3-0 defeat at Uxbridge in the final of the London Challenge Cup.

‘In which direction are we headed?’ was the title of a rather serious article (by WIE standards). It was written in response to a particularly bad midweek performance in April at Altrincham where it was judged that the players were very much going through the motions. The article also commented on a column written by club secretary Barrie Hobbins in the programme shortly before that trip to Alty in which he touched on the wage demands of certain unnamed players. If nothing else this article was another example of the general downcast, unhealthy mood at PVR.

Tim’s review of the Conference 1993/94 season did its best to lighten the mood as did his piece entitled ‘The World Cup 94; WIE Style’ which was the centre spread. We will bring that to you tomorrow. His next article was, for him, a bit serious as it reflected on the Football League’s decision to impose some ground requirements, which ultimately resulted in champions Kidderminster not being promoted and thus saving Northampton from relegation to the rightful place in non-league.

The summer rumour diary covered the period mid-May to early July. In that time Gary Abbott and Neil Clemmence left the club with keeper Darren Williams also placed on the transfer list at his own request. Mark Hone was expected to sign for Southend and there were question marks over the futures of Paul Copley and Tony Reynolds. All this was compounded by there being no new players joining the club up until that point. Again, an attempt was made to lighten the mood with an ‘amusing’ questionnaire aimed at discovering whether a football club ruled your life.

An account of Woking’s FA Trophy triumph over Runcorn at Wembley was an opportunity for a few sly digs at the Tarquin Army. This was followed by a space-filler (nothing changes!) which gave a few translations for pen pictures found in match programmes, e.g. “a loyal servant to the club” actually meant that nobody else was stupid enough to sign them.

The issue finished with Terry offering up a suggestion or two to the club; one was opening up the other set of turnstiles for bigger games and another about targeting the local schools to get more supporters through the gates. Both could be argued today.

The back page was a bit of a homage to Andy Townsend’s flowing locks while a Welling player. There’s no further comment from me as I’ll only be accused of jealousy…

As promised yesterday, we bring you an article from WIE 51 published in March 2018. We hope you have a good Easter and, more importantly, stay home and stay safe.

Mud, Glorious Mud

I see that poor Tottenham had a bit of a whinge about the state of Rochdale’s pitch before their recent FA Cup tie.  Apparently, in a town where it rains more than one day in two, the pitch can get a bit heavy.  Well, there’s a shock. How can today’s highly paid professionals be expected to play on such surfaces? The delicate flowers.

Being of a certain age, I feel that warm glow of nostalgia for proper muddy pitches. A quick diversion into the joys of YouTube reveal that even such a non-physical player as Trevor Brooking couldn’t avoid getting mud on his shirt from time to time while ghosting around in midfield in the 70s.  My somewhat selective memory has all pitches in the 70s consisting entirely of mud from about October, with the sole exception being my primary school field, where a cat’s sneeze in the wrong direction at lunchtime would be enough to have the pitch deemed “too wet to play” in the afternoon.  What could have been an enjoyable attempt by a ruck of small boys to get a leather ball (with laces) airborne was thus frequently cancelled.  The grass remained pristine, and the PE teacher had to inflict his sadism on us indoors.  So all those handy 1970s coaching hints of “using the wings” to avoid the quagmire that ran down the middle of all pitches were never put into operation at our school.  Of course, using the wings was not really an option anyway, as the dangerous psychopaths would be stationed at left and right back to inflict that other piece of coaching advice from the 70s “tackle them really hard as soon as you can to make them lose interest”. Tricky wingers were not so tricky if they couldn’t walk. The ultimate sadism from that particular primary school teacher was when, on the very rare occasions that the grass had avoided a cat-based moisturising, he would emerge from the PE equipment storeroom carrying… a rugby ball. PE teacher being a bastard?  Surely not.

Anyway, he is probably dead now, so on we go.

The questions posed to me by the editor were “How muddy was too muddy?”, and “What was the muddiest?”  My unreliable memory tells me that when games were postponed back then it was usually because of a frozen pitch, rather than what is now routinely described as a waterlogged pitch.  So any amount of mud was OK.

Welling’s pitch used to be pretty dreadful.  We moved into PVR in 1977 after Bexley United went bust in 1976, and it is probably fair to say that Bexley hadn’t been investing too much money in the pitch before they died.  With the ground being situated at the bottom of a hill, and with no adequate drainage, the pitch would become very muddy indeed.  Forty years later, and after much hard work by the club, and even with the best efforts of the parasites from Erith, the pitch is now pretty good. But that was not the case in the early years of the Wings at PVR.

Of course, whether the centre of the pitch was a bog or not didn’t really matter too much.  We had Ray Burgess and Peter Green in the middle of the pitch, hacking away at anything that moved in the overgrown sandpit that was midfield if anyone was foolish enough to try to move the ball through that particular area.  Behind them was Nigel Ransom who could thump the ball forward over all the mud, thus successfully bypassing it, to John Bartley, who would score.  So there was not much need of grass anyway.

The muddiest game I can remember was in 1983, on Easter Saturday.  I remember it as yet another reason to hate dartford.

1982-83 was the first year of the Southern League Premier Division (SLP) after a reorganisation. There had been a Southern League Midland Division and a Southern League South Division, and the top halves of these two divisions were merged to form a division that sat one level below the Conference. The Wings had scraped into the Premier Division by finishing the season before in 8th place.     Meanwhile, dropping down to the SPL after relegation were both dartford and The-team-formerly-known-as-Gravesend, which meant that plucky little Welling would be playing in the same division as our two local rivals for the very first time.  Of course, we had never been regarded as rivals before, and the fact that they had to stoop to play us was a bit embarrassing for our North West Kent neighbours.  Or Giants, as they regarded themselves.

We had been expected to struggle.  After all, the year before had been our first in the Southern League, and so we had effectively achieved two promotions in two years.  But with a midfield that contained Andy Townsend, and with Tony Agana on the left wing, we had players who would go on to have long careers in professional football and come Easter we were holding an unlikely 3rd place. Above us were Kidderminster and the third team to be relegated from the Conference, AP Leamington.  We were within touching distance as the season went into the final month.  But our Easter was looking tricky.  Home and away against dartford was scheduled for the Easter weekend.

And then enter the London FA, to make things trickier.

Once upon a time the county cups were taken a lot more seriously than they are today. In the early 80s the non-league pyramid system was just a plan, rather than a reality.  The Conference (Alliance) had been set up for 1979-80, a merger of the Northern and Southern Leagues with the intention of putting forward a solitary candidate for election to the closed shop of the Football League. As it turned out, no champions of the Alliance were ever elected. The third major league, the Isthmian, wasn’t interested in joining the pyramid structure.  Isthmian clubs had traditionally been amateur, whereas the Southern and Northern Leagues were dirty professionals, and although amateur status had been abolished in 1974, the amateur ethos was still strong in the Isthmian League.  They weren’t interested in going up to the Football League.

With little promotion within or between leagues, those clubs not in a championship race would focus more on cup competitions as a source of glory.  Hence the County Cups had a higher status and wouldn’t be used as an added training session for the youth team and a way to use up suspensions.

The London Senior Cup had a high status due to the large number of Isthmian Premier League teams in the competition.  Winners were Enfield, Dagenham and Walthamstow Avenue – big names in those days- and the competition was even mentioned in the Daily Telegraph, the only paper that covered non-league football in those days.  Covered it selectively, of course.  There was a column covering the old amateur teams in the Isthmian League but not the distasteful pros of the Southern and Northern Leagues, and another covering the Public School Old Boys Arthurian League, where readers could keep abreast of the fortunes of the Old Falopians and Great Pubes OBs.  Indeed, Welling’s first mention in the national press was in the Daily Telegraph a couple of years previously when the writer correctly predicted that “Carshalton should prove too strong for Athenian League Welling” (they were, to the tune of 4-0) in a London Senior Cup preview.

In 82-83 Welling went on an unexpected cup run in the London Senior Cup.  Victories against Fisher, Wembley, Kingsbury, Bishop’s Stortford and Leyton-Wingate had found us in the semi-final, where we were drawn at home for a first ever meeting with Sutton United and their exciting chocolate shorts. But there was a problem.  The Blazers of the London FA were absolutely convinced that their competition was very, very important (after all, Arsenal did win it in 1891) and insisted that their semi-final be played on a Saturday.  They chose Easter Saturday.  That left us a schedule of an away game at dartford on Good Friday, a cup semi-final the following day, followed by the return game against dartford on Easter Monday.  Three games in 4 days, which would decide our season.

Appeals to the London FA fell on the already deaf ears.  Sutton were delighted – they had no game on Good Friday and had no desire to ask for another date (that amateur spirit of “fairness” shining through, there).

So, to Good Friday.  Our first ever meeting with dartford as equals.  And our first defeat.  I have no specific memory of the game – I try to forget days out at Watling Street.  They all merge into one grim episode, epitomised by a red card for Stuart White for his unfortunate kick to the testicles of a dartford full-back, and his subsequent march off without waiting for the referee’s guidance.

Meanwhile, back at PVR, the already muddy pitch was being lovingly prepared for the Cup semi-final by the reserve teams of us and, again, Dartford, in a Kent League division 2.  The game was played in torrential rain, finished 2-2, and left the pitch a ploughed field.

We lost the Cup semi-final, of course.  It was 2-1 in the end, and not surprisingly we ran out of steam and couldn’t find an equaliser.  The pitch was ridiculous, and a visiting Sutton official was reduced to laughter when the man on the tannoy warned spectators not to come on to the playing field at the end of the game in case they damaged the pitch.  In case they drowned might have been a better warning.

Come Monday, and against my earlier assertion that games were never called off other than for frozen pitches, the return game was indeed cancelled.  Which was fortunate as the team needed the rest.  The game was played a week later, and we won 2-0, which was joyous.

It wasn’t enough, though.  A Tuesday night defeat away at eventual champions Leamington ended our hopes of an unlikely championship, and we finished 10 points adrift in 3rd place.  Leamington fell foul of the new curse of non-league football, ground-grading, and despite being in the Conference just the year before were denied promotion, with Kidderminster taking their place. Big boys dartford and The-team-formerly-known-as-Gravesend finished below little Welling for the first time, making us Kings of North West Kent for the first time, and we also went off to lose the final of the Eastern Floodlight Trophy (another cup competition we had been taking seriously) against lovely Chelmsford.  The less than sporting Sutton United went on to win the London Senior Cup, beating the yet to be hated Woking in the final.

Thirty-five years on, and games like the Sutton semi-final just wouldn’t be played.  Perhaps that’s a good thing, but I must confess to being utterly delighted this winter while watching a game that was being played on snow, with the lesser seen orange ball.  It was amusingly farcical. The undoubted highlight was the award of a penalty, and the subsequent search for the penalty spot.  Shades of the Baseball Ground of Derby in the 70s where the penalty spot was painted in by the groundsman before Derby could take a penalty against Man City, while commentator John Motson had kittens in the background.

Kittens at a football ground.  Never a good idea at my primary school.  They could get your football games lesson cancelled if they sneezed. The little bastards.

Tim

For our latest dip into the WIE archive we don’t travel back too far. Only two years in fact to March 2018. Issue 51 was a 28-page affair, which was dominated by the passing of club President Eric Brackstone in mid-January. Although Eric hadn’t been well for quite a while his death was still a major blow for everyone connected with the club.

The club’s former commercial manager Paul White wrote a wonderful personal tribute to Eric, which can be seen below and was rightly the issue’s centre page spread.

This issue’s other articles included a look at strange events to have occurred during Wings matches, like Loick Pires getting a yellow card for leaving the pitch without the referee’s permission for a pee and Sahr Kabba being the first player to be banned by the FA for feigning injury in the televised game against Tranmere Rovers.

There was also an article looking at the 8 (E I G H T) goalkeepers that had turned out for the club so far that season. They included the likes of Kleton Perntreou and Calum Kitscha; remember them? No, me neither. One of those eight was also Conor Dymond who donned the gloves away at Havant and Waterlooville following Dillon Barnes getting sent off. Dymond saved a penalty and, despite conceding a late goal, did more than enough to secure a valuable away win.

Next up was an account of a visit to Bromley’s Hayes Lane to take in Cray Wanderers against Lewes. Playing for the home team were ex-Wings Barney Williams and Mitchell Nelson. Both ended up being sent off late in the game and Nelson gave away a penalty (of course) to help the visitors to a 2-1 win.

There was next a look at the club badges of Conference South teams, which ranged from the traditional (think Wealdstone and St Albans City), to the more modern (Weston Super Mare, Gloucester City) and more weird/drab (Concord Rangers).

Tim brought his take on the muddiest pitches that he’d seen in his time, and we will bring you that in full tomorrow.

This issue also included a ‘Where are they now?’ looking back at the players who turned out for the club in season 2016/17 and included the likes of the aforementioned Mitchell Nelson, Sean Francis, Sam Hatton, Jamie Slabber, Oli Sprague and Bobby Devyne to name just six. May we never go there again!

The issue finished with a look at the change to the play-off system and, finally, a look back to when WIE featured in an early edition of FourFourTwo magazine. Some may say that it’s been downhill ever since…

WIE Issue 33 (September 2010)

As promised, we bring you the following article in full from WIE 33. And, for those that know him, don’t let the author try to convince you that the last sentence was some kind of prophecy…

What Might Have Been at PVR

The summer of 76 is best remembered for being a long hot summer; lakes dried up; emergency standpipes were set up in streets to provide water for the residents to use. And the government advised us to bath with a friend, which sounds good, but not if they were a fat minger who caused a large displacement when they got in.

But for a handful of people the summer of 76 meant something completely different. It saw the demise of the club they loved. That club was the perennial underachievers Bexley United. They slipped away during the close season, when mounting debts and a court action finally took its toll. Their final home match was watched by just 222 paying customers, so even back then the people of the borough couldn’t be bothered to turn out to watch the local team. Nothing changes.

The ground spent a season dormant. The council – with no revenue coming in – decided to invite applications from clubs wanting to move in and become the new residents.

There were just four applications. Obviously (if you haven’t worked it out already) one was from the current senior tenants – at the time of writing! – Welling United. The other applicants were Alma Swanley, Swanley Town and Corinthian Casuals, which are a mixed bunch to say the least.

What, though, had one of these clubs had been accepted instead of Welling? Would you have become, say, a supporter of Corinthian Casuals? Just imagine it, supporting a team who believed in fair play and sportsmanship. How bloody boring the last 30 odd years would have been! We would have missed so much – mass brawls, psychotic players, pitch invasions, and not forgetting the odd good player.

Think about it – would Corinthian Casuals have signed Paul Collins, a player who seemed to think that the two-footed tackle was the only way to tackle! Derek Somers, whose build was that of someone who had melted a bit from the waist up, but had an arse that stuck out more than J-Lo’s. Once, when coming on as a sub, he ran straight into the penalty area and laid somebody out – hardly the Corinthian spirit!

And there were many more; Colin Ford, Andy Townsend, Adrian Foley, Stuart White, even Gary Abbott who had a particular dislike (as did many others) of Boston United keeper Ken McKenna and he wasn’t afraid to show it. Sometimes this would result in him leaving the field on a stretcher or to a waved red card.

Also, we would certainly have never seen the great Duncan Horton in a Corinthian shirt or witnessed that epic punch-up that occurred on a wet August evening in 87 when we smashed Dagenham in every conceivable way possible. In a brawl that seemed to involve a few people off the bench as well as players, Duncan set about the opposition as if he was on a sponsored thumperthon. Had he been sponsored it would have probably solved famine in Ethiopia! No-one was spared, even Dagenham’s trainer copped it. Well, if you’re going to get a red, you might as well make it worthwhile!

Life would have been tame if Corinthian Casuals had moved into PVR.

As for the other two applicants – Swanley Town and Alma Swanley – I suppose one reason they had in common for applying was that they just wanted to get away from Swanley. Let’s face it, who – whenever they have found themselves in Swanley – doesn’t get the instant feeling of wanting to leave? Swanley Town, unlike Alma, actually played in the town at the recreation ground. To say this ground was basic would be making it sound better than it actually was. Let’s just say they had a pitch with goals at each end.

Alma, on the other hand, did have something that resembled a ground with a bit of cover and a clubhouse. The ground was a bit out of the way and right next to the A20, which on occasions was more entertaining than the football. Its main problem was a lack of space. Down one side was about four feet of grass to stand on, but with a sheer drop of something like 15 feet behind it – so you had to be extremely careful if stepping back to stop a ball going out of the ground.

Both these clubs have long since gone out of existence. Alma were the last to go after merging with Danson and playing under the name Swanley Furness – or was it Danson Furness? I don’t honestly remember as it all got rather confusing in the end. Had they moved into PVR; I think they would have probably changed their name to Alma Welling.

So, who knows what would have happened to those of us who watch Welling. Would we have turned up to watch any of these other teams had they been successful in their application? Or would we have gone elsewhere, say to Charlton, Cray Wanderers, or even Dartford? One thing is for certain, our football-watching lives would have taken a very different path.

Hopefully this situation will not arise again. If it does, my money would be on Erith Town moving in. They already rent a ground from the council and having previously changed their name from Woolwich Town to Erith Town shortly after moving to Erith Stadium they have shown that they aren’t averse to a name change. Would you watch Welling Town?

Terry

We hope that you’re all staying indoors and keeping safe.

The old issue under the spotlight this week is…

WIE Issue 33 (September 2010)

This 24-page issue heralded the not too joyous return of the fanzine having been put to bed some ten years before. This was originally only intended to be a one-off publication in support of the club’s perilous situation due to an unpaid HMRC bill that was threatening the club’s very existence.

The front cover – as featured here – wasn’t of high design quality and depicted disgraced former jockey Lester Piggott, who was convicted of tax evasion in the mid-1980s, riding to the rescue as the club’s new tax consultant. Well, we thought it was funny. You will also notice that the price of this issue was £2, with all funds that were raised being donated to the survival fund.

The three-page editorial focused entirely on the club’s predicament with the HMRC bill. Not too many laughs to be had there. Nor was there any to be had with the next article, which was a tribute to Wings legend Stuart White who had been tragically killed in a car crash in South Africa in early June. He was just 46 and his untimely death had been a real shock.

Next was WIE regular Tim’s hopes that he wouldn’t have to find a new club to support having been through that particular wringer already when his first love Bexley United had gone to the wall in 1976. In this particular article Tim covered his journey to becoming a Bexley United supporter and how he dealt with the immediate aftermath of their demise.

Some pages were taken looking at potential options for the club going forward. Supporters Direct and the prospect of a supporters trust seemed to be a viable option accompanied by some words of encouragement from a Sutton United supporter who had been involved in setting up their trust in 2006. As an aside, I think we could still learn and take a lot from the way our rivals from Gander Green Lane grew their supporter base in recent years.

As this issue cantered towards its conclusion (see what we did there), Alex told a tale of his obsession with European football. And if you’re a regular reader of the fanzine you will know that Alex has since provided regular updates of his travels. Next was Terry’s view of what might have been at PVR if the Wings hadn’t secured the ground’s lease following Bexley United. We will bring you that article in full tomorrow.

The final written piece was from Tim as he mused over the challenges that faced the growing number of foreign players in England and the phrases they would likely have to confront. Think the likes of ‘back door’, ‘left shoulder, right shoulder’, and ‘stand him up’.

WIE 33 concluded with a photographic double page spread that paid homage to Stuart White.

WIE Issue 5 (August 1993) – Part Three

In our third and final instalment looking back at WIE 5 we bring you the contents of the back page. And it’s a real belter. It’s the lyrics from the club song dating back to the early 1980s. I only truthfully remember the first line, which used to blare out over PVR’s distortion heavy tannoy when the team ran out.

Read those lyrics through carefully too. And then, should the current crisis leave us with a club to still support, we should all look to order “a Martini with ice” next time we’re in one of the club bars. Please take the time to study the bar staff’s face when you do too…

WIE Issue 5 (August 1993) – Part Two

The aforementioned 1992/93 season was indeed terrible. And we were especially bad away from home (nothing much changes, eh), so our heroic regular contributor Tim provided the following account of his travels which we reproduce verbatim for your delectation.

Not the Relegation Tour

25/08/92 v Wycombe; Lost 0-3

So, no surprises here. A nice little ground is Wycombe, and with a determined stride, it’s possible to gain entry to their bar without their resident gestapo pulling you back. A couple of ours sent off, but all that I can really recall is that my feet hurt, due to a new pair of docs.

29/08/92 v Stafford; Lost 3-4

I hate Stafford. Every time I’ve been, we’ve lost. It’s a drab place and doesn’t even look nice on a sunny day. A wonderful ground improvement meant that one of the terraces was fenced off for no particularly good reason, though it was good to see that both sets of supporters completely ignored this restriction. The game, of course, was farcical. A 2-0 lead in five minutes was turned into a spectacular defeat, with the added embarrassment of a winning goal from the very veteran George Berry.

08/09/92 v Woking (Drinkwise Cup); Won 2-1

Due to certain ideological differences with the sponsors of this competition, I found it necessary to boycott the whole tournament. We won, apparently.

12/09/92 v Bromsgrove; Drew 2-2

An odd place, Bromsgrove. Lots of middle-aged men, all of whom were wearing green and white scarves. The majority decision was that ‘we didn’t like it’, mainly because the place was almost a three-sided ground, but I must be a dissenting voice as there is a bar and a decent terrace, and the weather is nice, so what more could anyone want? As for the game, well we managed our first point of the season, which should have been three except that we had a referee who obviously wasn’t going to stop the game until Bromsgrove had equalised, which they eventually did.

26/09/92 v Merthyr Tydfil; Drew 1-1

A bit wet was Merthyr, it must be said. But I don’t mind travelling up into the Welsh valleys, despite the fact that the U.N. had got a relief convoy of identical shell suits through to the local population. They’ve got a nice bar with a fountain in it (always an important accessory, I reckon). And with Cardiff not far away, it gave me the opportunity to ask for a pint of Brains. Oh, and we drew.

03/10/92 v Kidderminster; Lost 1-2

Running out in Charlton’s away kit, with a goalkeeper of whom we had never heard was an inauspicious start. Still, it did avail us of the opportunity of singing a few rousing choruses of “Going back to the Valley”. The lads responded, throwing away a handsome lead and sending us home pointless. A special merit mention must go to Wings fans Danny and Steve, who succeeded in getting themselves thrown out of the ground for being very, very drunk indeed after just seven minutes. Well done lads. We’re proud of you.

13/10/92 v Bath; Drew 1-1

It was midweek. It was cold. And the burgers were very pink. So, I didn’t have one, and I wasn’t sick on the way home. And the lads ground out another point.

17/10/92 v Gateshead; Won 2-1

Gateshead is a long way away and is therefore a must for any self-respecting Welling fan. It is always cold, and it is always windy, but we always seem to do well up there. One of the bonuses of visiting Gateshead is that the game itself is played in the International Athletics Stadium, which means that all the action happens about half a mile away from where we are sitting in the main stand. This gives us, the fans, the great opportunity to gaze aimlessly into space, and not watch the game at all. Which is obviously not such a bad thing.

One great thing to watch is the elderly stewards, who all wear exciting fluorescent bibs. These come in two varieties: bibs that can be tied on and bibs which can’t. It is those that can’t that are the ones to watch, as periodically they are caught in the wind and flap up into the wearer’s face. Gateshead being such a windy place, this happens about once every five minutes, whereupon an entertaining battle ensues to remove the offending article by the elderly steward concerned. And five minutes later, it happens again, a case of the elderly battling against the inevitable (which somehow reminds me of the centre of our defence…). Anyway, the best bib incidents occurred in the 22^nd and 68^th minutes, and other match highlights were the girl with the cardboard box on her head (well spotted by Steve), the big concrete birds on top of a nearby warehouse, the well-disguised javelin holders opposite the main stand and the strange blue triangular Lego bits which have been stuck on the flats in Byker. And we won 2-1.

24/10/92 v Kingstonian (FA Cup); Lost 1-2

Our glorious FA Cup run ended after 90 minutes, when after taking an early lead, we decided to adopt the same tactics as we had applied in the previous year’s match at Leyton Orient – namely that if the ball isn’t in the ground then the opposition can’t score. Sadly, Kingstonian had a large supply of substitute balls and deservedly dumped us into what may turn out to be the early qualifying rounds of the FA Cup. And, oh yes, there was some kind of managerial change or something, I can’t quite remember…

03/11/92 v Farnborough; Lost 2-3

At the time of writing, Farnborough have managed to get themselves relegated, despite scoring hundreds of goals. And I for one won’t miss going there. One of the Conference’s less interesting grounds, my trip wasn’t helped by the fact that British Rail had decided to dispense with the signs at Farnborough station. The game itself proved that the removal of a manager doesn’t necessarily mean the end of bizarre substation decisions, with two-goal Gary Abbott being taken off, only for Farnborough to take the lead with three minutes left, leaving us with not enough forwards to do anything about it.

10/11/92 v Slough; Lost 2-4

Football grounds should be surrounded by small terraced houses. They shouldn’t be in large fields with horribly muddy car parks. Sod off, Slough, that’s what I reckon. I was a bit disappointed to discover that I was actually older than the new Welling manager. As a source of dismay, this ranks alongside the realisation that I’ve probably left it a bit late to make any impression in the youth team. Sad old man.

14/11/92 v Northwich; Drew 1-1

It is written in the scriptures that Welling should never lose at Northwich (well not more than once at any rate). Watching that sad Northwich defender slide in that last minute equaliser has to rate as one of the few highlights of the season.

05/12/92 v Kettering; Won 4-2

The trip from Bristol to Kettering by public transport in December is the theme of Michael Palin’s next mini-series. I myself wasn’t feeling up to it, so I took in the fine flowing football on display at Bristol Rovers versus Luton. And I was thoroughly rewarded for my unfaithfulness by what was by all accounts a very good performance. And I missed it. Bloody typical.

19/12/92 v Altrincham; Lost 0-2

I can’t remember anything about this at all. Even the quality of the pies escapes me.

26/12/92 v Boston; Lost 1-2

Our local Boxing Day derby against Boston. Boston have, of course, been deservedly relegated for having no decent roads anywhere near them, and whatever their results next year, I really think that they should not be readmitted until they get a decent motorway within 50 miles. And their pies were really foul. The game itself should not have been played as the pitch was frozen, and to cap a perfect day, we lost to the traditional goal in the last five minutes.

16/01/93 v Woking; Lost 0-1

Two more players sent off, and another defeat. After twenty years of watching this daft game, it’s very rare that I actually get worked up by totally incompetent refereeing displays. But this was one of those occasions. I wasn’t impressed. And I wasn’t impressed with Woking either. The club room seems to be a nasty scout hut, and the ground seems to have been painted in army surplus green for no apparent reason. But I suppose that’s how I feel about places when we lose.

02/02/93 v Dover (Kent Senior Cup); Won 1-0

Oh joy! Ending Dover’s two-year unbeaten home record, despite the fact that they are the self-proclaimed best team in Kent! Dover’s promotion to the GMVC has assured us a happy 180 minutes in the company of… Maurice Munden! How we love the iceman of Kent football. He is so embarrassingly easy to wind up, it’s almost untrue. ‘Hello Maurice’ in a high-pitched voice was good enough to get him gesturing at us in a manner that would shame even Ian Wright. He threatened to beat us up and his gesturing even came to the notice of a linesman, so blatant was it. Still, the thought of him offering out the crowd at say, Kettering, fills me with some amusement. So, to any fellow Conference fans out there who may be reading this and who have the necessary malicious streak, Maurice-baiting is an excellent sport.

13/02/93 v Runcorn; Lost 0-3

Our good record up in scenic Cheshire came to a fairly abrupt end with this thorough stonking. There was nearly a nasty incident when we got investigated by a group of small children who had been let in free and fancied heckling us. But I suppose the sight of some fairly large and ugly Welling fans, some of whom had their trousers rolled up and were wandering around with handkerchiefs on their heads (cos that’s what people do up North) scared them off. Meanwhile, across the river, the factories of Widnes continued to churn out their custard creams and freshly baked bread.

16/02/93 v Uxbridge (London Crap Cup); Won 2-1

A dire warning of what awaited us if we were relegated. This game was of no interest to me, or any other Welling fan there, as far as I could gather. Highlights of the game were that a carload of Wings fans turned up late and missed Ransom’s goal, and the other was the amusingly long time it took our debutant YTS player Barnes to touch the ball. Uxbridge itself was a perfectly friendly place and looked like non-league football without the stress.

23/02/93 v Witton; Won 1-0

My manager wouldn’t let me have the time off work, so naturally we won and to add to my distress the winning goal was scored by Clemmence (hammered home with his shin, apparently).

27/02/93 v Macclesfield; Drew 1-1

With a 1-0 lead and playing against ten men, we really ought to have won against a poor Macca side. Still, I’m happy that they stayed up as the pint that is available in the Star pub (just passed the ground) has to be the best in the Conference.

Stop Press: There’s a dead good pub I know in Halifax (if they succeed in not going bust this summer).

23/03/93 v Yeovil; Lost 0-1

A good performance which had the air of “plucky, but still going down” about it. I’m afraid that I don’t like Yeovil’s show-piece stadium. Admittedly it looks nicely ordered with its two smart new stands and two terraced ends. But they don’t open one end which is designated for the away supporters, so as an away supporter it’s very difficult to know where to go. The choice is to either stand with a whole load of Yeovil fans and get quickly identified by our lack of smock wearing, or sit down which I regarded as an appalling prospect as I am one of those supporters who believe that the buttock is an unnecessary part of a football fan’s anatomy.

03/04/93 v Telford; Won 1-0

I never look forward to our days out in Telford. Perhaps it is because we have never achieved anything better than a 0-0 draw at the Buck’s Head, or perhaps it is because I once made the mistake of getting off a train at Telford Central station, only to find myself in a huge shopping centre surrounded by high-tech banks and approximately five miles from the ground. Still, whatever the reason, I really don’t like the place and hence it was most satisfying that we won, at last.

12/04/93 v Mutant-Dagenham; Lost 0-1

The sooner this conglomeration of shite goes bust the better, I reckon. What can they put down as their club’s honours? ‘We’ve shut down more clubs than Jim Thompson!’ I made the mistake of buying their fanzine and was surprised to find a 3-page reprint of the Dagenham v Mossley FA Trophy Final of 1980. Are their mutant fans seriously trying to claim other clubs’ honours as their own? Will their next fanzine include an article saying how they, as Walthamstow Avenue, drew with Manchester United in the FA Cup? Will it hijack the FA Amateur Cup triumphs of Leytonstone and Ilford? It would come as no surprise if they did. The mutants currently have a whole load of non-league internationals on their books. They must be expensive. They have the ability to reach the Football League and I fully expect them to do so. But they have no more neighbouring football teams to swallow up, which means no large influx of cash from selling the other clubs’ ground. So, they will go bust and I for one will not mourn their passing. (P.S. We lost.)

01/05/93 v Stalybridge; Drew 0-0

Last day of the season, and the draw ensured our survival. Thank you, Stalybridge, and thank you Altrincham for that marvellous display at Farnborough. I can only compliment Stalybridge, ‘cos they were nice about us in their programme, and I’ve got a soft spot for them anyway as I was an occasional visitor to their ground as they struggled to get out of the North West Counties League. But that walk up from the station is a killer!

So ended the tour. Roll on 93/94.

Given the current, difficult situation we thought it might be a good idea to take an occasional dip into the WIE archives. If nothing else, it keeps us busy. So here goes.

WIE Issue 5 (August 1993) – Part One

This was a 40-page issue to welcome the start of the 1993/94 season with the club still in the Conference. The previous season had seen the club finish in 20^th place in the table and only be reprieved from relegation thanks to St Albans City failing the ground grading thanks to a 140-year old oak tree standing within the terrace behind one of the goals at their Clarence Park ground. Hence the clever and, some might say, hilarious front cover.

One of the highlights in this issue was one correspondent describing his particular loathing for both Dover and Sittingbourne. The latter may today seem to be a strange choice, but back then their owner was splurging money in a failed attempt to get into the league (funny that). That and their particularly vocal manager, John Ryan, did little to do anything other than piss people off. Of course, it all fell apart for The Brickies, but that’s another story.

With a nod to the previous season another correspondent providing an account of his visit to Bradford City to see Frank Stapleton’s (remember him?) side lose 2-1 to visitors Hull City. Meanwhile our White Socks, recently to be heard starring on WUFC TV, recounted us with his views of the late season midweek defeat away at Yeovil Town. And he doubled up his contributions with an account of going to the Cup Winners Cup Final (remember that competition kids?) at Wembley in May in which Parma beat Royal Antwerp 3-1. To bring a more of a Wings focus to proceedings there was also the tortuous tale of the coach journey to and from the game at Telford United, which was only made bearable by the fact that we won 1-0.

In those early days of the fanzine we used to have regular contributions from supporters of other clubs and this issue was no exception. An old work mate of the editor was a St Johnstone fan (he did have the excuse of being from north of the border) and provided a piece on former Wing Martin Buglione’s debut for the Saints against Celtic.

Anyway, in two separate updates in the coming days we will share two particular highlights (for us, at least) from this issue. The first is WIE stalwart Tim’s game-by-game account of the previous season’s away campaign. And it doesn’t make particularly pleasant reading and, no doubt, you will realise that nothing much changes following the Wings away. The second will be the back cover, which was a reproduction of the lyrics from “Welling United” by The Sindicate. It’s so bad (of toe-curling proportions) that it is in fact brilliant. Enjoy.

We believe that, very occasionally, copies of WIE 5 appear on eBay.

We are pleased to announce that the new issue of the fanzine is out tomorrow for the visit of Bath City to PVR. And it will still only cost you £1. Get your copy from our sellers who will be outside the entrance to the turnstiles as usual.