Bricked: Capel see off Jarvis Brook in a season-ender of little to no consequence

Why not round off the 2023/24 season with a match of no consequence which seems to sum up why so many people do it in the first place?

There's always time for at least one encore.

Enfield last weekend was supposed to be it for the season, for me. Play-off match kick-off times are too erratic and tickets too much of a pain in the backside to come by to give them much attention unless I’ve got real skin in the game. So why was I even perusing the Southern Combination Football League fixtures in the middle of last week? Was it because the 20th April was too soon to be calling time on this season? After having been occupied by a match almost every Saturday afternoon since the end of July, was I wondering how I'm going to occupy the long, hot afternoons of summer until things get back under way in a couple of months time?

It turned out that there were only a handful of games on anywhere over the entire course of the weekend. The obvious choice would have been Sunday afternoon's National League South play-off final between Worthing and Braintree Town, but the ticketing situation for this match was brief and chaotic, and that was something I definitely didn't want to find myself getting involved in.

The entire three divisions of the SCFL and its baffling array of playoffs and divisional cups could only offer two matches but fortunately, on a weekend when I'm up near Horsham, one of those two matches is convenient. It's a match of precisely no consequence whatsoever, and as it's being played in the league's basement division, kick off times and perhaps even the venue might be a little more elastic that I might have expected. But it's a football match, and there's no reason to suggest that it won't be on. Off to the depths of the Weald I go.

Capel is a village only five miles north of Horsham, roughly halfway to Dorking, but it's in a different county. I don't spot any signs as we cruise along country roads on a bus apparently being driven by Stirling Moss, but by the time we get to the village, we're definitely not in Kansas any more. Just as everywhere else around here is, Capel is surrounded by woods and greenery to the extent that I worry that the recreation ground could be hidden from view.

In fact, that there is football ground there is revealed by the shouts of men who are playing in it. I get there just after two o'clock. The SCFL website said three, but I know better than to trust this level of the game any more. After all, earlier this season we turned up at a ground for a match that wasn't even being played at the club concerned's home ground. Having busted a gut to get there, we then had an extra half hour tacked onto our walk to get to the actual venue.

This is a level of football at which the rules of the game as most find them don't really apply. Promotion from the SCFL Division Two is done by application. Anyone who finishes in the top five can apply for it. But we already know that Capel can't finish in the top five this season, and we also know that their opponents, Jarvis Brook, didn't apply. A quick check of the league table and fixture list confirms this match to be a total dead rubber, of no consequence to anyone at all. It's a football match as an administrative exercise, completing the season so that the league table is properly completed.

***

They love a brick, in this neck of the woods. A lot of the brickworks on the Sussex/Surrey border have gone now, but the name of Capel survives as one of the more common red house bricks available. The biggest single reason for this is the land itself. We're up near The Weald, and the ground underneath our feet is made of clay. Heading north out of Horsham, there's a motley collection of villages at or about the border between West Sussex and Surrey. Kingsfold. Capel. Beare Green. Judging by the map, Capel FC seem to play in Beare Green, but I've been fooled before by this, this season.

It's the shouting that proves decisive. Walking along the main road, an extremely familiar noise fades in, the sound of adult men shouting at each other while being okay at football. Kick-off time has been brought forward to two o'clock because reasons (the SCFL website didn't seem to have been notified of this, for one thing), but such is the nature of my character on a Saturday afternoon that it doesn't bother me that I've missed the first couple of minutes of the game.

Some might claim that this is football in its rawest form. It certainly only clings on as something that can be taken seriously as ‘senior’ football. There's no entrance fee. There's no turnstile to take any. There are no refreshments and there's no bar. Capel have one of those whiteboards with the team lists, so beloved at this level of the game, but that doesn't list the opposing team. At a push, you could argue that the changing rooms behind one goal offer a little cover from the elements, but broadly speaking this is football pared down to its rudiments. At one point in the first half, a wayward shot heads across the road, narrowly missing a passing Range Rover.

There are other compromises that have to be reached. There are seldom any qualified line-runners at this level of the game. The referee's assistants are provided by the two teams, and this gives the referee an extra task if trying to work out whether their assistants are just being overzealous with their flagging or whether they just don't quite know what they're raising these flags for. By half-time, Capel are 2-1 up thanks to a penalty—given for a non-foul around ten seconds after the referee had waved away a tackle so loud that you could distinctly hear the click of boot on ankle from where I was standing.

Of course, the rudimentary nature of the facilities mean that compromise has to be made. There's no food, but there'll be a shop nearby, won't there? And presumably the same will go for pubs, won't it? On the latter of these, the answer is a resounding ‘no’. The pub that had been a couple of hundred yards away has been converted into an Indian restaurant. The next nearest is two miles away. But Maps does identify a Londis about a ten minute walk that is described as “well above average for corner shop”. Don't threaten me with a good time, lads.

On the way to this “well above average” shop, a challenger appears. Well actually, it's another Londis, this one built into a petrol station. It has a Greggs built in. It proudly advertises its “24 hour Off Licence” (which remains a strange claim, certainly for those of us who remember the times when it was considered a little gauche for petrol stations to sell alcohol in any form). But its siren calls cannot tempt me. I've got a “well above average for a corner shop” to visit, and if that means crossing the dual carriageway in a manner which resembles a scene from Frogger: The Movie (and not for the first time this season), then so be it.

But does this Londis pass muster? Meh, it's alright. I applaud their dedication to selling individually wrapped pieces of fruit and vegetables and it's slightly surprising to see the wall the furthest from the front entrance being given over to what look like catering-sized box of dog biscuits, but broadly speaking I'm left with a feeling of, “Well, how good were you expecting it to be?” By the time I get back to Beare Green, I've missed the first ten minutes of the second half, but I wasn’t going to miss out on the drama that had been nailed to a bus stop just round the corner from the pitch.

There are further goals in the second half, as I sit propped up against a tree behind one goal. The match finishes 3-2 to Capel, but what's really striking is the event itself. This may be a match of such dead rubber that it's effectively extinct, but there's a crowd here. A quick headcount indicates about fifty; definitely not the lowest crowd I've seen this season. One guy turns up early in the second half with his own chair. I wonder to myself whether he took his information from the SCFL website too and assumed it to be a 3.00 kick-off.

And considering the essential dead rubberness of the occasion, the two teams are having a right old go at each other. There are a handful of yellow cards, and it feels towards the end as though we're not so far from a punch up. But the referee keeps a lid on things, the linesfolk don't annoy too many people (apart from the occasional shout of ‘you should be doing this in the Premier League’ from opposing players when they become a little over-enthusiastic with their flag-waving), and there's even a cheer at the final whistle.

Season over. There’ll be no thrilling playoff talk or breathless discussion of how much money they might make from it all, though they’ll likely have at least one end of season do at which trophies will be handed out and too much ale will be drunk. Capel FC have been playing football since 1906, but they only transferred from the very recreational West Sussex League a couple of years ago. They’ve been doing this round here for well over a century now. Ideas of ‘ambition’ or ‘glory’ are for other clubs. For these two, and hundreds more like them the length and breadth of the country, it’s primarily about giving some guys a game on a Saturday afternoon.

As I walk round to the main road after the final whistle, they’re packing up. The goalposts are on wheels. The dug outs have to be folded up. The rope around the pitch has to be wound in and put away. There’s a couple of old boys who get on with that. They’re not being paid to do it. There’s no suggestion that anybody would or could make money from this. They’re doing it for the love of the game, just the same as everybody else here on this sunny Saturday afternoon, when the stresses and strains of the working week could be put to one side in favour of a couple of cans of gin & tonic and an enthusiastic football match of limited quality. August can’t come around soon enough.