When people talk about Sutton United, the conversation usually starts with football. The FA Cup runs, the promotions, the giant-killings and the unforgettable moments that have made the club famous far beyond South London all deserve their place in the club’s history.
But spend any length of time around Sutton and you soon realise there is another side to the club that rarely makes the headlines. It isn’t measured in league tables or points totals. Instead, it is measured by the opportunities created, the confidence built and the lives changed.
That was the subject of my latest conversation with Steve King.
Steve isn’t someone who seeks recognition. In fact, one of the biggest challenges during the interview was persuading him to talk about his own achievements rather than immediately praising the volunteers around him. Yet after spending the time talking about the disability section, it became clear that what has been built over the last decade deserves far more attention than it receives.
Like many Sutton supporters, Steve’s story began almost by accident. Growing up on the nearby Collingwood Estate in the mid-1970s, he heard the roar from Gander Green Lane when Sutton scored an equaliser against Bournemouth. Curiosity got the better of him and before long he was making his way to the ground, becoming another supporter who simply never left.
Years later, after becoming involved with the club’s community work alongside Tony Henderson-Smith, Steve recognised there was an opportunity to offer something that simply wasn’t available locally. There were disabled people who loved football, wanted to represent their club and wanted to be part of a team, but there wasn’t a pathway for them to do so. Rather than waiting for someone else to solve the problem, Steve decided Sutton United should be the club that did something about it.
The beginnings could hardly have been more modest. Training took place on muddy pitches at Collingwood Recreation Ground with only a handful of players. Looking back now, it is almost difficult to believe that Steve’s first ambition wasn’t to build one of the country’s most respected disability football programmes. He simply wanted enough players to put a team out and play a football match.
What stands out throughout the conversation is that Steve never viewed the section as something separate from Sutton United. From the very beginning, his aim was for every player to feel they were part of the football club. They wore the same kit, carried the same training bags and represented the same badge. That might sound like a small detail, but it sent a powerful message. These players weren’t there to make up the numbers or satisfy an inclusion policy. They were Sutton United players, every bit as much as anyone who pulled on the amber shirt on a Saturday afternoon.
As the section grew, so did its reputation. New players arrived, volunteers joined and opportunities began to appear that would once have seemed impossible. Teams travelled around the country, competed against some of the biggest names in disability football and even travelled to Belfast to take part in the George Best Community Cup. Steve still talks about that trip with genuine excitement, remembering not just the football but the experience of taking players, many of whom had never flown before, to represent Sutton United on such a stage.
One moment in our conversation reminded me of something Aaron Lucas had told me when he appeared on the podcast a few years ago. Aaron, an England cerebral palsy international, had opportunities with clubs including Chelsea, West Ham and Fulham. Despite those options, he chose Sutton United. That decision says a great deal about the environment Steve and his team have created. Bigger clubs may have bigger names, but belonging cannot be bought.
Perhaps that explains why one answer from Steve resonated more than any other. When I asked what makes Sutton United different, he didn’t talk about facilities, budgets or league positions. Instead, he talked about people. He described a club where supporters, volunteers, players and directors all know each other, where everyone is approachable and where, after a while, it genuinely feels like family.
That sense of belonging has become a recurring theme throughout this podcast. Managers have spoken about it. Players have spoken about it. Volunteers have spoken about it. Time and again, people describe Sutton United in remarkably similar terms. Listening to Steve, it became obvious that the disability section has played an important part in reinforcing exactly those values.
The football itself has continued to develop at an extraordinary pace. Alongside the pan-disability programme, Sutton has now established a cerebral palsy team that has already enjoyed success in national competition, while Steve’s ambitions remain as strong as ever. He wants to see more opportunities for disabled footballers, more regular competition through a Friendship League across London and more clubs providing meaningful opportunities within their own communities.
Yet when I asked him how he measures success, Steve didn’t mention trophies or medals. His answer centred on changing lives and giving players opportunities they might never otherwise have experienced. The football matters, of course it does, but it has always been a vehicle for something much bigger. Confidence grows. Friendships develop. Families find a community. Players discover a place where they feel valued and accepted.
That may be the biggest lesson I took away from this conversation. We often describe Sutton United as being more than a football club, but phrases like that can become clichés if we’re not careful. Listening to Steve explain what has been built over the last eleven years gives those words real meaning. The disability section isn’t simply another team wearing the club badge. It represents everything Sutton United likes to believe about itself: ambition, community, inclusion and a determination to make football accessible to everyone.
As Disability Pride Month reminds us to celebrate disabled people and challenge assumptions about disability, Steve’s story feels particularly relevant. Not because he set out to create an award-winning project, but because he set out to make sure everyone who wanted to represent Sutton United had the chance to do so.
If you’ve only ever associated Sutton United with what happens on a Saturday afternoon, I hope this conversation gives you a new appreciation of everything that happens during the rest of the week. There is an army of volunteers quietly making an enormous difference to people’s lives and Steve King has been at the heart of that journey from the very beginning.
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and I hope you enjoy it too. The full episode is available now on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.
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