In this latest episode of Sutton United Talk Time on Podcast, we explore 'The Thing That Unites Us' with special guests Alex and Claire. Hosted by me, Mike, this episode delves into football fan culture, memorable matchday rituals, and how genuine passion fuels everything at Sutton United.
Mike Dowling
00:58 - 01:34
Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast. It's the Sutton podcast in association with Lucky Star Gin. I'm your host and joining me today we have Mark and Maybe Dan joining us, we're not sure, he's gonna walk about. We do love hearing from you. When you join the conversation in, stay connected, share, like, comment, all the other stuff. Boost my ego at Sutton Podcast on all social medias, and a big shout out to those who constantly do it as well. Mark and I are both battling with the sun, because I completely forgot about the clocks moving, so
Speaker 1
01:34 - 01:34
it's now
Mike Dowling
01:34 - 01:44
definitely summertime, and we've got the lights streaming in. How are you, Mark? How was your... Apart from the football, how was your weekend?
Mark
01:44 - 02:08
Yeah, apart from the sort of 90 minutes between 3pm and 4.30 or 4.45, it was pretty good. I stayed over Friday, Saturday, and Boston's a nice town. Some of the people there are a bit old, but let's pass over that. But yeah, it's an attractive town and yeah, quite pleasant couple of days apart from the footy.
Mike Dowling
02:10 - 02:10
I don't
Mark
02:10 - 02:10
think
Mike Dowling
02:10 - 02:12
you can say that about most places, some of the people are
Speaker 2
02:14 - 02:14
a bit odd.
Mike Dowling
02:15 - 02:50
So there was a little question I sent and I'll give you a couple more seconds to think about it as I pray the jingle. It's the Knowing Me, Knowing You segment. And the question was, have you ever gotten emotional because of a Sutton United match and tell the story? Now, this might well be why Dan hasn't joined, because emotions could be anger. Have
Mark
02:50 - 02:50
you ever
Mike Dowling
02:50 - 02:53
felt emotional about a Sutton United match?
Mark
02:55 - 03:32
I'm sure I have. I've only just seen the question, actually, so I haven't prepared for this at all. The one game that comes to mind, it was an FA Trophy replay at Dover back in the 90s. And Dover, I think, were at a higher level than us. I think they were probably in what was then the Conference, and we were in the Espion League. And it was a rather dull nil-nil at our place, so we weren't expecting much from the replay. And the replay was an absolutely cracking game. I can't remember the final score, but
Speaker 1
03:33 - 03:33
I think
Mark
03:33 - 04:11
it might have been 3-2 to us after extra time. But it was a fantastic goal from David Jones, I remember in that game. Really end-to-end stuff, great goals, great excitement. It wasn't a game I was expecting us to win and I stayed over in Dover actually. Luckily I booked some accommodation because I knew the game might go to extra time and I then missed the last train back, so I stayed over. and I just remember this being on a complete high for the whole of the next day. It was just one of those random games where I was expecting us to lose and it was a great game and we won it through to the I think might have been the quarter or semi-final of the trophy.
Mark
04:11 - 04:27
I think it was the quarter and we lost to Enfield in the next round rather tamely but that's by the by. But yeah, that's the game that comes to mind. There are plenty of others I'm sure I could have mentioned if I had more time to think it through, but that's the one that came to mind first.
Mike Dowling
04:28 - 04:33
That's the beauty of the questions, I could ask you that same question in another five or six weeks, you'll have a totally different answer.
Mark
04:34 - 04:35
Very likely,
Mike Dowling
04:35 - 04:59
yeah. I mean, mine would be the Wimbledon replay, because I just stood there, in fairness, probably no emotion at all, because I just stood there absolutely like, what just happened? The Wigan penalty win was very emotional. And very close at Wembley when we were about to win, I realised I was
Speaker 1
04:59 - 05:00
about to burst into tears if
Mike Dowling
05:00 - 05:00
we'd
Speaker 1
05:00 - 05:01
actually
Mike Dowling
05:01 - 05:16
won. So it was very close at Wembley. But let us know your thoughts. What game has made you emotional? And tell us the story behind it. and some podcasts on all social medias. The ladies won earlier today, brilliant
Speaker 2
05:16 - 05:16
4-0
Speaker 1
05:17 - 05:17
victory.
Mike Dowling
05:17 - 06:05
Yep, 4-0 and dominant display from what I could see and hear. So brilliant, well done ladies and Gabby Smith scored 2, so that's excellent. Art Club News, it came out earlier, but Ben is going to be doing a Q&A, so there's tickets available, it's free, but you've got to, obviously they need to limit numbers because we can't hold everyone, so get onto the website and book that, it's going to be a Q&A. He's going to be quite candid because it clearly says no recording allowed, so there may well be some very open discussions there. But on to the game, what were you thinking ahead of the match?
Mike Dowling
06:05 - 06:21
They were in good form. I mean, I know they're the lowest in the league and they're fighting for their lives. But when you kind of looked into it, I think they've won four of the last six or something before they played us. So they were in quite good form. So what were you feeling at the start of the match and with the line-up?
Mark
06:23 - 06:55
Well, I was a little apprehensive, but because you say they've been in such good form lately, they pulled themselves to the brink of escaping from the bottom four where they've been, I think, all season. That said, you know, we've been playing better away from home recently than at GGL, so I thought it was a good chance to give them a good game. As for the line-up, I think the only real surprise was the new guy, Kai Adam, starting. I thought he might start on the bench, but I was a little bit surprised to see him in the starting 11.
Mark
06:56 - 07:14
Apart from that, obviously, they are short and wide players at the moment, with Dylan and Josh both out probably for the season. But there are other players who could have started in that right-wing back position. So that was, I think, the only real surprise. Otherwise, pretty much, as you might have predicted,
Mike Dowling
07:16 - 07:41
Yeah, I, like you, thought he'd start on the bench, and I thought Jaco would start. And I also had Suji starting over Nadas, because I just thought that would bring Nadas on second half a bit of pacing from the tied legs. But I mean, this is going to jump around, so forgive. Both, well, all the goals came from set pieces.
Mark
07:42 - 07:42
Yeah.
Mike Dowling
07:45 - 08:08
Is it a vulnerability or is it just that game? I mean, you were there, I've heard peppered in the first half of long throws. Some people were saying, well, we need to have an outlet because we had everyone behind the ball. So they thought we were being peppered because it just kept coming back at us. But how did you feel about the set pieces? Are you fairly confident on them normally?
Mark
08:09 - 08:48
I don't think we've been great at set pieces all season, either defending them or using them to get goals. I mean, Will obviously has got on the end of a few corners and free kicks. But otherwise, I don't think we've been particularly impressive with the set pieces. Their guy, their centre-back, had this huge throw, which we must have known about. It can't have been a secret. And, you know, apart from the one from which they scored, we did actually defend them pretty well. There was one that I think Jack actually got hands to. He didn't need to because you can't score from a direct from the throw, but he tipped it over the bar for a corner.
Mark
08:49 - 09:00
But apart from that one, and as I said, the goal, we did actually defend them pretty well. But, you know, you've only got to lose concentration once and what happened, and they're 1-0 up.
Mike Dowling
09:01 - 09:16
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the one where Pete kind of threw and Jack saved it. You've got to be a really brave keeper to just go, no, I'm going to let that go. Because if it catches anyone, touches anyone, then
Speaker 2
09:16 - 09:17
it's
Mike Dowling
09:17 - 09:21
gone. So, I mean, they do it just to kind of play the odds that someone's going
Mark
09:21 - 09:31
to touch it. I think probably he thought he could catch it and then it turned out to have a bit more force or power than he was expecting. So he went over the bar instead of him holding it. I suspect that's what happened.
Mike Dowling
09:32 - 09:54
Yeah, I've seen one free kick years ago for England for Stuart Pearce, I can't even remember who it was against and that's how long ago it was, but it was an indirect free kick and he actually just lamped it straight in and the goal. Might have been against Holland and Van der Sar and just literally just stood there and the ball went past him and he just was like picked out of net and went to take the free kick because he knew it wasn't allowed. It was like,
Speaker 2
09:54 - 09:55
oh, okay, that's confidence.
Mike Dowling
09:57 - 10:17
But yeah, the long throw-in caused us a bit of havoc. we don't seem to have that, I mean we've got a long, somebody can throw it, but we don't seem to have that same kind of ability to cause the havoc. Why do you think that is? Is it just the way we're set up?
Mark
10:19 - 10:56
Well, we haven't got a real long throw specialist, although, as you say, Ryan Jackson's pretty good with those, and he showed that when he came on in the second half. But we do have somebody in the team like Rob Milsom, who had terrific delivery from dead ball situations. Lewis Simp is not bad, Barbrook's not bad, but we don't have anybody of the kind of Rob Lewis and Tommy Kavanagh standard. And I think that is a weakness in the side. If you're going to do really well in any division, you need somebody who's a good free kick taker.
Mark
10:56 - 10:57
We don't really have anybody at the moment.
Mike Dowling
10:59 - 11:03
Okay so something you'd be looking hoping we target in the summer or something?
Mark
11:03 - 11:18
Well I don't think it's rocket science so I would put a thought one or other of those and ideally bringing in somebody who's got a bit of a bit of a record at doing well from from dead ball situations.
Mike Dowling
11:21 - 11:27
I mean, we lost late again and we thought we got over this a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1
11:28 - 11:29
We're past all this now, it doesn't
Mike Dowling
11:29 - 11:52
happen anymore. What is it? I mean, could you see it happening, like we've said before, that you just knew it was going to happen, or was this one a bit of out of the blue? I know the goal was a bit of a scrappy one, we'll discuss it in a moment, but was it one of those where we just knew it was going to happen, we weren't seeing the game out, or what did it come out of the blue?
Mark
11:53 - 12:18
No, it did come out of the blue a bit. I thought we'd be hanging on for, hold on for a draw. I thought we might even snatch a late winner because I thought we were the better side in the second half. I mean, they dominated the first half. It was only the first half hour and we were perhaps a little fortunate to be only one at half time, although to be fair, apart from the goal and I think one save that Jackson's made, they didn't actually have much on target in the first half despite bossing possession.
Mark
12:19 - 12:44
So we got in at half time, we came out a bit stronger in the second half. They'd lost some of the momentum they had in the first half, which is unsurprising. They'd burnt themselves out a little bit. And we had a lot more of the ball in the second half. And I thought we did look, without being anywhere near top of our game, I thought we looked for a better side. Obviously, there was a penalty incident, it was still one all going into stoppage time. I think there was quite a lot, I think it was six minutes, five or six
Speaker 1
12:44 - 12:45
minutes
Mark
12:45 - 13:16
added. And even when they got that free kick, I wasn't too worried. And by the way, they just didn't clear the ball. Even then, there didn't seem to be a huge danger that Meghal would come on as a sub and just... He basically was a mishit shot. I think if he shot cleanly at the goal, I think Jackson could probably have saved. But the ball, as you saw, he hit it into the ground. It just looped up over Jack. He couldn't get to it. So it was a bit of a free goal and rather against the run of play in that second half.
Mike Dowling
13:18 - 13:31
Someone said it also took a deflection as well. Not only the miss hit into the ground, it took a deflection. And I think someone was like, there's no keeper who would have ever been able to save that because it just went, it was hit completely wrong. There was no way
Mark
13:31 - 13:32
the keeper
Mike Dowling
13:32 - 13:33
would have been in the right spot.
Mark
13:34 - 13:48
So I didn't, I didn't see a deflection. The non-league paper report, I think mentioned a deflection, but I think that's incorrect. I don't think there was one. It just hit the turf and then looped up. that's with some pace because they got hit quite hard
Speaker 1
13:48 - 13:48
so
Mark
13:49 - 14:04
the pace behind it and and it just you know at some some speed it looped up into the top corner of the net and we had feelings of despair suddenly descended on because there was only about a minute or maybe two years left yeah yeah I mean
Mike Dowling
14:06 - 14:25
Steve mentioned, you said we played better in the second half. A lot of people said we played much better in the second half. Steve mentioned control. So we were in complete control after half-time. Did it feel like we were in control or did it feel a little bit more cagey than that? And why are we not converting this pressure into goals?
Mark
14:26 - 15:22
Well, I don't think we were in complete control. I think that's just Steve talk with a better side, but say that's not saying a great deal. We did two pretty, pretty average sides, to be frank. I mean, Broston weren't great. They had the incentive to win the game because of the way they were on the table. We didn't have that. And that may have given them a bit of an edge. But without bossing the game, I thought we would just more in control than they were for most of the second half but you know there was a lot of over elaboration we got the ball you know down the flanks a few times but rather than getting early balls in we just knocked it around trying to get the perfect crossed in and by that time they regrouped got their defense reorganized and when the ball came in it was cleared by a defender or claimed by the keeper So we didn't really put their goal under much pressure in the second half, despite having a lot more of the game than we'd had in the first half.
Mike Dowling
15:24 - 15:30
Yeah, I mean, we'll talk about Will. He scored in the first half from Maz's free kick,
Speaker 2
15:31 - 15:31
which
Mike Dowling
15:32 - 15:35
is his 18th league and 20th goal of the season, which they've
Speaker 2
15:35 - 15:36
come
Mike Dowling
15:36 - 16:06
out to say that it's the first player to hit 20 since Dan Fitchett, years ago. I mean, He then took the penalty. He won the penalty and took the penalty. So since he missed, there's been various conversations whether, well, should he have taken it or should it have been Suji? I mean, I think Sujith scored one from one and Will scored two from two prior to that.
Mark
16:06 - 16:19
Sujith scored two. Sujith, he scored against Austria back in August. He scored against Ebsley in the... Oh, right. Sorry, the trophy game in December. And
Speaker 2
16:19 - 16:20
then we
Mark
16:20 - 16:24
were 3-1 down and we got two goals back to make it 3. We'll take a penalty shootout.
Speaker 2
16:24 - 16:25
We lost those
Mark
16:25 - 16:28
goals as a penalty, which Sidhu scored. So
Speaker 2
16:28 - 16:29
it's two
Mark
16:29 - 16:38
each. That's right, two each. Will has scored against Eastleigh and filed from the spot. The two more recent ones were Will's.
Mike Dowling
16:39 - 16:58
Yeah, so bearing in mind the fact the form he's in, he won the penalty. At the time, did you have any kind of misgivings saying, well, Tudji's been on for a couple of minutes, should he not be taking it since he's the expert? Or were you quite confident when he stood up to take the penalty and you're thinking, here we go, this is it, now we're taking the lead?
Mark
17:01 - 17:42
It crossed my mind that perhaps Saju could take it, but Will took those last two pretty confidently, so I didn't have any feelings about him taking it, but there was still a debate that went on off the mat about whether he should have taken it or not. There was quite a long wait between the ref awarding the penalty and actually being taken. And I always think the longer the gap between the penalty award and the penalty being taken, the more likely the penalty taker is going to fail, either in shoots wide or in the saves.
Mark
17:43 - 18:18
And the longer that, it wasn't a huge one, it was a minute or so, and I thought, this is not great, I'd rather we just stepped up straight away, definitely allowed it and taken it. But somebody did point out, well, he'd just been fouled in the box. He may have been feeling the effect of that foul. It's quite a heavy challenge, the penalty award. So maybe he felt he needed a bit more time to get over that, but maybe feeling the effect of that meant he shouldn't have taken the penalty. And Sidhu, just come on, I think you've been on five minutes or so.
Mark
18:18 - 18:26
Sean, perhaps what happened is that Will should have picked the ball up at the last moment, handed it to Sidhu.
Mike Dowling
18:28 - 19:07
Yeah, because that's what they've done before, haven't they? The sun is now completely covering me, so maybe it's a good thing, everyone, you can't see me. Right, my sunscreen did not work. So you mentioned also Cain Adam. made his first appearance. Now, like you, I would have expected him to start on the bench. And it's always a worry when someone comes straight into the team. I wonder how Nana kind of felt about that. But what did you feel about him and how he was doing?
Mark
19:09 - 19:42
He was playing on the right-hand side, I think a sort of right wing back in the first half. That was on the opposite side of the pitch from where the away fans, where we were. So it was a little bit difficult to track him from there. I didn't really notice him for the first 10 minutes or so. Then he had a couple of quite promising looking bursts of pace down that side. And I thought, well, maybe, you know, he's got something to offer here. Maybe he can cause their defence a few problems. Obviously, we were playing on the counterattack mainly at that time.
Mark
19:42 - 20:03
But then after that, I didn't really notice him again. Second half, there was one attack we had down the road. He was on our side of the pitch in the second half. And it was one attack he was involved with quite early in that half, which came to nothing. But he helped to build that. And then not long after that, we took him off and Ryan Jackson came on. Obviously,
Speaker 2
20:03 - 20:03
he's not been playing
Mark
20:03 - 20:28
a lot of football lately, so he's probably never going to play 90 minutes. I think it might have been better to have brought him on late in the game, particularly if we needed a goal rather than starting. That said, I appreciate the short width at the moment, wide attacking players and Steve perhaps told you he wanted to attack Boston from the off, so he wanted to start with an attacking wide player rather than a more defensive one like Jaco.
Mike Dowling
20:30 - 21:03
Yeah, I mean, then the other side is obviously the wing was playing quite heavy roles. Maybe they thought, well, actually, let's just chuck Jaco on because we can hopefully not say. One other bad bit of news. Jack Taylor has gone off with an injury and Steve sort of said that's him out for the season, which always makes you kind of go, and then he kind of say, anything now but anyone gets out for more than a couple of weeks now is going to be a season ending because you won't get back in time but I mean how bigger miss is he going to be?
Mike Dowling
21:04 - 21:11
And how did Harry, when he came on, play as well as Jack? He's
Mark
21:11 - 21:56
obviously going to be a miss and he's played well since coming into the team. It seems that we're losing key players in certain areas of the squad, centre-backs and wide players. I thought Harry Ransom did well when he came on. He cleared quite a few dangerous balls. I thought he actually looked more effective than Tyler French. I'm a bit surprised that Harry's not had more game time this season. I thought he had to take the crawly in the football league. He's a key member of the squad and he's not had many minutes. So I thought he did pretty well, though, of course, he was on the pitch when they scored that late winner.
Mark
21:57 - 22:15
I wouldn't necessarily blame any individual player for that, but there was a bit of a collective failure in defence to get the ball clear then, but I thought we did okay. And we've got Hayley, we've got Muller in the centre-back and top of the large can play in
Speaker 1
22:15 - 22:15
the
Mark
22:15 - 22:31
back as well. So we do have enough players who can do a job in that sort of centre-back position. But I think missing Taylor and Kirk when he's fit and responding very well, I think is a bit of an issue.
Mike Dowling
22:34 - 22:40
Yeah, Steve kind of hinted at the fact that he didn't want to play Jack as much, would
Speaker 2
22:40 - 22:40
rather
Mike Dowling
22:41 - 22:44
give him a rest, but you've been playing so well, you can't go on, I'm just going to give
Speaker 2
22:44 - 22:44
you a
Mike Dowling
22:44 - 22:57
rest. But do you, I mean, do we think that that was the injury, that he just played too much, or is it just, again, bad luck? Because we seem to be having a lot of bad luck. I know Steve mentioned it in the interview again, saying, I don't like
Mark
22:57 - 22:58
talking
Mike Dowling
22:58 - 23:01
about luck, but their manager said it as well.
Mark
23:02 - 23:31
Well, I mean, Jack's a young guy. I mean, sometimes, you know, for carrying a slight injury, they're risked by the manager. And sometimes playing with a slight injury can actually aggravate the injury and make it worse. And that has happened to certain players in the past. You know, previous managers have put out key players who are carrying an injury, and the injury's worse. And they let them up for a long period. But I don't think that was the case with Jack. I certainly wasn't aware that he was carrying any sort of injury. I don't think he was.
Mike Dowling
23:31 - 23:32
No.
Mark
23:32 - 23:53
So I think it was just a challenge, which ended up with him, I'm not sure whether it was his hamstring or his groin, but he was limping very heavily when he went off. I thought he was going to be out of the season now. Certainly wouldn't expect to be back for a good few weeks. I think
Mike Dowling
23:53 - 23:54
Steve said it was his groin.
Mark
23:55 - 23:55
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Dowling
23:57 - 24:05
I mean, how much apart do you think luck actually does play? I mean, injuries, we get them piling up at this time of the season.
Speaker 2
24:05 - 24:05
And
Mike Dowling
24:05 - 24:07
the goal, as you described, it's
Speaker 2
24:07 - 24:07
been
Mike Dowling
24:07 - 24:18
mishit, hit the ground, looped in. We don't seem to get these goals. I've said this a couple of times this season. But how much do you think luck plays a role and how on earth can we change our luck?
Mark
24:20 - 25:04
Well, they say you make your own luck. Obviously, luck does play a role in football. But, you know, sometimes I think teams that have a bit more to play for get the luck. And those teams that don't or are already struggling don't get breaks. You know, Boston their lives at this level. And sometimes if you've got that kind of mindset when you need to win that game, sometimes things just go for you. But you've got a bit of momentum behind you as they have. Whereas if you're just pooping along the table, you're not going to make the playoffs, you're not going to get sucked into a rotation dogfight.
Mark
25:06 - 25:10
You're lacking that and perhaps a bit less likely then to get the breaks.
Mike Dowling
25:12 - 25:18
I mean, so if there's anyone out there that wants to do some kind of pagan Christian witchdoctor ceremony, anything you like, if you
Speaker 2
25:18 - 25:18
want to come
Mike Dowling
25:18 - 25:52
to Down the Green Lane, just let us know and we'll try and change the luck and get some good luck. Steve was clearly frustrated. So it's a game we shouldn't lose. He said it was a crap first goal. I mean, he's quite blunt. Do you think it is a fair assessment? And does his frustration Will that resonate with people? Will people kind of be going, oh, okay. He's not just putting up words. I mean, he's not singling out individuals. He's saying, we should have stopped. We should have stopped this. Yes, this particular person did this, but as a collective, we should have stopped it.
Mike Dowling
25:53 - 25:54
How do you feel about that?
Mark
25:55 - 26:37
Well, Steve obviously doesn't like criticising individual players. Very few managers do. Dolzer did it, but he could get away with it. But, you know, Steve believes in protecting his players, which is admirable. So I think if it's been a failure, he'll describe it as a collective failure rather than speaking about individual players, which is fair enough. I suspect Steve is feeling the pressure a little bit. I suspect his brief this season was to get us at least into the playoffs and that's almost certainly not going to happen now. I suspect he's feeling that a bit and what may colour some of his interviews.
Mark
26:37 - 27:12
But he's also going to be very guarded about that as well. He's not going to let anything slip. But yeah, if the season peters out, as it seems to be doing, National League Cup aside, and we finish somewhere below mid-table, he's probably going to feel he's not done as well as would have been expected. And that will bother him, I've no doubt. He's a man, he sets high standards, and I think probably wouldn't admit this necessarily, but I think he probably feels he's fallen a bit below the standards that he might have set himself.
Mike Dowling
27:14 - 27:36
Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure the play-offs were set as a target, maybe a hopeful target, but not as a, we want the play-offs. Because I remember Gary kind of going, no, it's not, we don't have to get promotion this year. In fact, there's certain things we want to do that would be easier if we were not promoted. So I think it's more of a slight long-term plan to get back into the league despite the socials at the start of the season.
Speaker 2
27:37 - 27:37
But
Mike Dowling
27:37 - 27:54
you're right, Steve would have, even if we said, oh, we're just happy where we are, Steve would have had his own. targets and being like, well, I'm going to achieve these. On that, I mean, we've dropped to 14th, which I think is probably the lowest we've been
Speaker 1
27:55 - 27:55
this
Mike Dowling
27:55 - 28:03
season. Despite everyone's hysterics and various different times of the season, I think it's possibly the lowest we've been outside
Speaker 1
28:03 - 28:03
the
Mike Dowling
28:03 - 28:13
first few games. Are we seeing the season just peter out? Are people on holiday? Will they be allowed to kind of settle like this?
Mark
28:14 - 28:53
Yeah, I mean, we had a post-mortem on the game in the Eagle pub, and there were about 10 of us discussing it, and the mood was pretty despondent, and the general consensus was the season is just fizzling out. I don't think anybody involved in the conversation is a great fan of the National League Cup, to be fair. But we've got three big games coming up, next three, obviously there's a National League Cup, setting Brian La Braintree on April Fool's Day. And then two big home league games, Southend and then Rochdale midweek. Those are two obviously ex-league clubs with very clear playoff ambitions.
Mark
28:55 - 29:36
We're going to get a very big crowd for Southend. They're going to bring around 1,000. Could be our biggest game of the season. I think we really need the team to perform in those next three games. Otherwise, it's going to be even more redundancy and criticism and pressure. The team has shown in the away games at York that they can rise to the occasion. toe-to-toe with the top sides, but they didn't do it enough, and the whole point of doing exercise has been woeful. You know, if you want to run a season on any sort of high, you should change.
Mark
29:37 - 30:10
The opportunity there, you know, we need a motivator, I think. I mean, obviously Steve's quite a technical manager, he's not perhaps a great motivator, opposite of Dolls, he wasn't particularly technical, I think he didn't, he wasn't a great motivator. And I think we need a bit of motivation now to kind of raise the players and say, look, you know, the season seems to be detouring out, three big games coming up, you know, we've got it in you surely, despite the injuries, you know, let's get that extra 10, 20% in performance, let's win some of these games.
Mike Dowling
30:11 - 30:20
Yeah, I mean, no one wants the season to peter out and there's always the slim hopes that if we suddenly win the next three, four games,
Speaker 2
30:20 - 30:21
we'll
Mike Dowling
30:21 - 30:58
be right back in the mix again, but it's putting those results together. I mean, there were some points of views, which I will put the jingle in now. And it basically, it was Andrew, but he said pretty much what we've covered is the first half was difficult playing into the wind. Second half played better, dominated and deserved a goal. Unfortunately, the missed penalty came back to haunt us, but you won't hear any fault on the effort and endeavour from the players. Would you agree or do you kind of think that they could have put in a little one or 2% more?
Mark
30:59 - 31:17
I think they, I mean there was one or two players, I'm not going to name them, but I think already more or less on the beach. I mean it's not to say they weren't trying but, you know, they weren't working quite as hard as they might have done. I think, you know, there was effort out there but not quite as much as there might have been, let's put it that way.
Mike Dowling
31:18 - 31:36
Do we think some of those who haven't got a contract sorted might be getting to the stage of the season where they're like, oh, I don't want to go in for that because I'll get injured. Then where does that leave me in the summer? I mean, I wouldn't say that, but do you think that crosses any players' minds at all?
Mark
31:36 - 32:06
I think it's possible. I mean, I'd hate to say that's definitely the case, but it's not impossible. And we know that some players Some of the players who were on the pitch yesterday are probably not going to be with us next season. Obviously, some of them are lone players, they're going back to their clubs anyway in all likelihood, but maybe one or two others whose contracts are just not going to be renewed or extended may be thinking, well, do I really want to put that extra effort in this game, you know, six weeks from the end of the season?
Mark
32:07 - 32:08
Is that possible?
Mike Dowling
32:09 - 32:49
Yeah, but then the flip side of that is they do because they want to show everyone what they can do. So I mean, it's just it's difficult to apply yourself, I guess, when you've lost that thing to play for. But we'll wrap up yesterday with the good, the bad and the funny. So what was good for you yesterday or the whole day? Again, it's not just on the pitch. What was good for you?
Mark
32:50 - 33:25
Um, well, there's not much good to say about the match. So, uh, I'll just mention what I did before the game as I walk got out to the RS reserve at France and Nosh. And that's a little, um, sort of wetland reserve and saw some good birds there. King of Spoonbill, fun bird to see, big white stork-like bird with a spoon shape. So I've got a good view of one of those. Um, now I actually walked from there to the grass. an hour. So that was that was a pleasant way to spend
Mike Dowling
33:26 - 33:33
the morning. So I would I would definitely come with Will's 20th of the season because we haven't had
Speaker 2
33:33 - 33:33
a 20 cold
Mike Dowling
33:33 - 33:35
striker for a long time but that's
Speaker 2
33:35 - 33:35
fine
Mike Dowling
33:36 - 33:37
and what was bad?
Mark
33:39 - 33:41
Well, the injury to Jack Taylor, I think. I
Speaker 2
33:41 - 33:42
mean,
Mark
33:42 - 33:58
there are other things that one could mention, but yeah, that I think is the most obvious. It's not good for Jack and it's not good for the team to lose like that, but he'll be back next season. Absolutely. And that's a big club he's in for him
Mike Dowling
33:59 - 34:03
Well, this, this is a worry. Discussion
Mark
34:03 - 34:04
for a long time, perhaps.
Mike Dowling
34:04 - 34:08
Yeah. If a big club is looking and they suddenly see he's injured, they might just call
Mark
34:08 - 34:11
out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a blessing in disguise.
Mike Dowling
34:12 - 34:16
For us. Yeah. But what was funny about the day?
Mark
34:18 - 34:38
Well, there weren't a lot of laughs, frankly. I'm struggling to think of anything. The best I can come up with is the Pink Hat Brigade. Yeah. Out again in force, as you may have seen yesterday. And before the game, they were kind of, you know, singing and chanting and waving to the home fans. It was the exact opposite. And that was quite funny.
Mike Dowling
34:39 - 34:42
Yeah. I think it was only 13 at first. Was it more than 13 now?
Mark
34:45 - 34:47
I didn't count them, they're 13 sounds about right.
Mike Dowling
34:47 - 34:48
Yeah,
Mark
34:48 - 34:48
so because
Mike Dowling
34:48 - 34:52
some of the Boston fans were mentioning, going, what was with all the pink hats? I was like, there's only
Mark
34:52 - 34:52
a few
Mike Dowling
34:52 - 35:08
of them. They are quite busy. Yeah, absolutely. But looking ahead, you've mentioned the, depending entirely on the result, very prestigious competition that we're in the semi-final of, or the competition that no one's going to care about, we're
Speaker 2
35:09 - 35:09
in the
Mike Dowling
35:09 - 35:39
semi-final of. I know lots of people of different different views on it, but it is a competition we're in, and it is the first one. It may turn into a prestigious competition at some point, so it would be nice to have Sutton United as the very first winners. What are you feeling about that match against Braintree? You mentioned this on April Fool's Day. Are you going first, or are you interested in the competition, or is this one that you're just kind of going, no, I'm not doing that?
Mark
35:40 - 35:46
I'm not going. If it was at home, I probably would go, but I've not been to any of the National League Cup games so far.
Speaker 2
35:46 - 35:46
Fair enough.
Mark
35:47 - 36:09
Leaving aside the kind of principle allowing under-21 size into the competition, it just feels to me like an artificial competition, and it doesn't really interest or excite me at all. I appreciate that the club's making money out of it, and obviously we need money at the moment, so I'm not going to be too critical, but I shan't be going.
Mike Dowling
36:10 - 36:25
Fair enough. Yeah, it is one of those that everyone was straight away like, no. And they didn't help themselves because they released the fixtures, I think, a week before they were due to start. I don't think they've even announced where the final is yet. I've
Mark
36:25 - 36:28
heard Linton, but I've not seen that confirmed anywhere.
Mike Dowling
36:28 - 36:43
No, I think that was a rumour, but that was squashed as well. But what do you feel about the match? Do you feel we're going to Go for it, win that match. What do you feel like with the injuries? It's a bit of a distraction at this moment. I mean, it's
Mark
36:43 - 37:14
the only thing we've got left. It's the final. Yeah, I mean, it's a chance to get to a final. So the players have taken it seriously, haven't they? But then again, the same is true for Braintree. They're probably clear of relegation worries now. Not completely, but, you know, it looks like they're on a good run at the moment. which is obviously a concern for us. But, you know, I think they'll want to go for it. So I think it'll be quite a tough match. Brentford have improved since the first half of the season as they changed their manager.
Mark
37:15 - 37:29
They're quite hard side to beat now. They're quite well organised, being part-time. And, yeah, I think we would do well to get past them. You might need to go to penalties, who knows?
Mike Dowling
37:31 - 38:00
mentioned the part-time there, that was something that was brought up quite a lot since yesterday afternoon, that we're losing to part-time sides. I mean, some Sutton fans seem to have a very short memory because we used to be part-time, we used to love beating the full-time teams, so I'm not sure part-time is a It's a gateway up where we're definitely going to win because they're only part-time because, as I say, we used to love that whole...
Mark
38:01 - 38:07
Yeah, and we won the National League as a part-time side, of course, albeit in a strange season when there were no, you know, most of the matches.
Mike Dowling
38:08 - 38:15
Yeah. But Southend, the Saturday one, what are your thoughts on that game?
Mark
38:17 - 38:26
Okay, I wasn't at the reverse fixture back in September because I was in Venture Time. I was a bit sorry to have missed that because obviously it was a good win for us. It
Mike Dowling
38:26 - 38:26
was.
Mark
38:27 - 39:05
I mean, Southend had a pretty slow start to this season and they were sort of knocking around the table for a long, long time. But as I'm sure most of our fans are aware, they've been creeping up the table in recent weeks, their form's improving. They're now on the verge of getting into a playoff place. So I think they'll come with real momentum next Saturday and they'll really be going for it. So, you know, we need to be up for that challenge. If we play having recent home matches, we'll get beaten. And there'll be a big crowd, as I said, there'll be quite close to capacity.
Mark
39:06 - 39:18
So big, there'll be vocal, there'll be a lot of noise, real atmosphere. The players need to rise up to that and meet
Mike Dowling
39:18 - 39:41
that challenge. You mentioned the noise earlier, and I didn't mean to pick up on that. It's something that we've struggled with for years. I remember years and years ago, before DOZ, people saying that we don't make any noise at Canterbury Lane, yet when the small band of merry people go away, there's lots of noise.
Speaker 1
39:41 - 39:42
And we kind
Mike Dowling
39:42 - 40:09
of put it down to, well, when you come back to Canterbury Lane, you're all dotted in your own little spots. And that's why it doesn't seem to happen. But I know we've got the young ones behind the goal. But how important do you think it is for us to kind of go? Yeah, that's it, we're going to get behind and we're going to give them everything. The last two weeks, the last two home games are very difficult, because within a minute, we've given away a goal. So it's quite difficult to get up for it there.
Mike Dowling
40:09 - 40:18
But let's assume we get through the first few minutes, how influence do you reckon we could make, especially if the crowd get behind the players?
Mark
40:19 - 40:57
Well, I think you can make a difference, yeah, the old reference to the crowd being 12th man and all that. I think if Doz was still manager he'd be really, yeah, trying to incentivise everybody to get behind the team, he'd be hyping it up as a big game. Obviously Steve's not like that, he's a different sort of personality. I don't think there's anybody who can kind of, maybe Tim Vine, but nobody else who can step in and kind of, you know, get the adrenaline flowing in the build-up to the match. So I think it's going to be partly self-generated.
Mark
40:57 - 41:30
I think if the team starts strongly, don't necessarily have to score early, but if we start on the front foot, I think that's going to lift the home crowd. And that could then start a sort of routine reaction. But if we start badly, as you mentioned, as we had in the previous two games, I think the opposite is going to happen. The home fans are going to get deflated and fall silent, whereas the away fans are going to start making even more of the noise. So yeah, I think it's important, but I'm not going to call how it's going to go.
Mark
41:31 - 41:42
I think the players have got to do their part. They can't say you've got to lift it. The players have got to lift it out. I think it's a two-way relationship.
Mike Dowling
41:42 - 41:48
Yeah, that's the thing that's been going on for donkeys is, do the players lift the crowd? Do the players lift the
Speaker 2
41:48 - 41:49
crowd? Do the players kind
Mike Dowling
41:49 - 42:06
of bounce off each other? Maybe what we need to do is some of the players who aren't playing, we'll get them in behind the goal, rather than sitting up in a stand and getting behind the goal and get some of the boys G'd up. I'll mention that. Right, so where you said you're not going to call it, I'm going to ask you for prediction.
Mark
42:07 - 42:08
Which one?
Mike Dowling
42:08 - 42:09
The South End one.
Mark
42:10 - 42:22
OK, OK. Blimey. I need to think about this. I'm going to go for my usual save one.
Mike Dowling
42:23 - 43:04
Okay, I'm going to go for 2-1 Sutton. Late goal. So, we are wrapping up this episode of Sutton Podcast. Thank you very much, Mark. As always, we appreciate everyone's attention and feedback. Get involved in the Know Me, Know You segment. Have you ever gotten emotional because of a Sutton night in match? Tell us the story. Follow, like, share, give the thumbs up of this episode at Sutton Podcast on all the socials, especially on YouTube. Subscribe, leave a review, leave me some comments. And we'll be back after the South End match. And I've got Sarah and Chalmers, I think, off the top of my head.
Mike Dowling
43:04 - 43:06
Sorry if I've panicked either of you and it's not you, but I think
Speaker 1
43:07 - 43:07
it's
Mike Dowling
43:07 - 43:15
you too. As always, thank you to our sponsors, Lucky Star Gym. Thanks again, Mark. And thanks to you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Take care and we'll see you soon. Bye-bye.
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