Page 4 - Deal Round Up March 2020

How’s This For
Commitment
By Matt Badcock

HEARD the one about the football team that have to play 16 games away and only eight
at home?
Meet Alderney FC – the club who have to raise £50,000 in an Island Games year, play
four double headers a season in Guernsey’s Priaulx League and haven’t won a Muratti
Vase game in 100 years.
That’s only part of an amazing football story being played out on the small Channel Island
located 60 miles from the south coast of England and less than ten miles from France.
But despite their declining resident population clocking in at just under 1,800 people,
Alderney football is in a positive place.
Having finished runners-up in their
league last year, they are once again
battling it out for the title.
And they’re dreaming of ending their
century long wait for a win in the Muratti
when they take on Guernsey in March.
A recent email into The NLP inbox asked
if we’d fancy telling the story of football
on Alderney. It was an interesting piece
to write. My knowledge of the Muratti
pretty much started and finished with
Guernsey and Jersey playing in the final every year and the rivalry being fierce.
But Alderney have been getting closer to a final appearance and they dream of upsetting
the odds – and the programme printers, with chairman Reg Atkins joking they are printed
before the result of Alderney’s semi-final is even played out!
“Two-and-a-half years ago we were playing Jersey and we were 1-0 down,” Atkins told
me. “We equalised in the second minute of injury time. They went mad, the crowd went
mad, I went mad. Unfortunately we then went and conceded a minute later!
“So we have run them close. In 2002 was the first time we had a chance of winning
when, would you believe, Chopper Harris was Jersey manager.
“We got it back to 2-1 and hit the bar in the 90th-minute. They hadn’t allowed for extra
time and booked to be on the earlier plane.”
Travel on and off Alderney can be an issue. It’s not uncommon for players to get stuck
off the island when the fog sets in. In the winter flights don’t run so their regular leagues
games in Guernsey are crammed in before October to avoid a late season pile-up.
When The NLP speaks to Atkins, he’s just off the phone after rearranging an away game
that can’t be played because of a waterlogged pitch. The alternative of playing on an
artificial surface would have only allowed for 30 minutes to get changed and back to the
airport. And that wasn’t taking stoppage time into consideration.
What is also remarkable is the players’ commitment to the cause and their league
programme. Of the 24 games, they have to play two-thirds away. Each player forks out
£900 towards the costs of flights and hotels for the double-headers.
They’ll play one game on the Friday night before the second Saturday lunch time –
imagine that in the Premier League!

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