Home, and waiting for the cards to land

Is this the last time I'll see Worthing FC as a resident of the town? Not inconceivable.

You can't always control the things that happen to you in your life, but you can control your reaction to them. This week, two important parts of my life have fallen in on themselves in very different but eerily similar ways, on both occasions in ways in which I wasn't expecting.

To clarify, no one is dying, nothing is terminally wrong. Everyone who needs to know, knows. It hasn't been easy, but things have been more difficult for two people who matter to me in very different ways than they have for me. In tandem, my life is also going to be changing, and in ways that I wouldn't even have expected at the start of this year, which is going some, considering that we're only two months into 2025. I'd love to say more. There's a lot more to say. Maybe one day, in my memoirs. But not right now.

One of the rare luxuries that has been afforded me this weekend is a Saturday afternoon to myself. I need it. I need to be away from the house, and from other people. I've had a week of the stresses that come with the existence of other people.

All of this makes football a decent enough getaway for a Saturday afternoon. Worthing are at home to Chesham United, and I'm at home and able to get there in a relatively peaceful manner. It almost feels a bit strange. For many football supporters, doing what I do on this Saturday—buying a ticket and taking a leisurely stroll to the ground, arriving there 25 minutes before kickoff—is just normal Saturday behaviour.

This hasn't really been the story of my season. I've been to Essex, London, Surrey, Kent and both Sussexes so far, but there certainly haven't been as many Saturdays out that have felt like adventures of late. This certainly isn’t to say we haven’t had a lot of fun at times, this season. But at the same time, my football has started to feel as though without context, and once you start to see something like that, you can't unsee it.

The good news here is that there is some very contextual football indeed going on just up the road from my house. Worthing could go top of the National League South this afternoon, should Dorking Wanderers drop points at home to Chelmsford City. Things are, of course, hilariously tight at the top of this division, but going top at this point would be a big step forward.

And there'll be a decent crowd at Woodside Road for it too. They've been averaging 1,500 this season, the fourth-highest in the division. The eventual reported crowd turns out to be 1,523; not bad, considering the Albion are also at home, just up the road. After two straight losses in the playoffs, there's a feeling as though Worthing could emerge from a crowded (and some might argue imperfect) bunch at the top of this division. Five days earlier they huffed and puffed their way to a 2-1 win against Bath City. Another important three points to put them second, behind Dorking.

It's a forty-odd minute walk to Woodside Road from my front door at a leisurely pace, so I opt for that. I even buy a ticket online in the middle of the morning and upload it to my Google Wallet. I'm organised. I leave the house a little before two o'clock. It's a familiar walk. Five days a week I do it with the kids to drop my older one off at school. There are questions, occasionally arguments, and more often than not sentences which start full of purpose but then meander off before ending with a question that doesn't make any sense.

There'll also be hoards of other parents around with their kids in the morning. At the time that I take mine out, the biggest danger sign is if there *aren't* any about, because that this means that either there's an inset day that I've forgotten about—something which has come about less recently because, as you'll be unsurprised to learn, discussion of when this day falls is one of the favourite topics of conversation on the mums' WhatsApp group—or that I’m late and will have to present them at their school offices. The ultimate shame.

But on an early spring Saturday afternoon, the walk into Worthing is pleasant and boring along a largely straight and empty road flanked by large, modern houses. Past the school, under the railway line, through the industrial estate, under the bridge, up an alleyway and past a flat I used to live in to get to the station, and then straight on. There's barely a cloud in the sky. It's a mild spring day, but because we're only a few minutes walk from the sea there's still a freshness in the air.

There's a smattering of others making the same pilgrimage as I by the time I get to the station; older men in beanie hats, dads and lads in matching red and white bar scarves. It's a quiet walk up a suburban street to the ground, and I'm there 25 minutes before kickoff. There isn't a queue, only a large camouflage-coloured coach park outside and some people waiting around for friends.

They really have done a good job on the renovation that's taken place at Woodside Road over the last few years. The crumbling terracing and tin hut at the far end of the ground have gone, replaced by a covered terrace. Along the side opposite the main stand, the small cover has gone and the whole side has been reshaped with a large covered terrace which looks frankly fit for the EFL. Both are painted bright red.

The only end of the ground which hasn't seen much change is the near end. It's half-covered, with the other side open. The main stand has been renovated throughout, with a modern bar underneath it. It's tall and narrow, and the renovation is impressive, compared to the slightly dishevelled look it had when I first came here, getting on for twenty years ago. I don't like 3g pitches, but I recognise their value to clubs and fully understand that I'm on the wrong side of history over this. There's still some work to be done on the ground and corners to be filled in, but it has character. It feels like a home ground.

With twenty minutes to kickoff the bar is queued to the door, so instead I watch the first ten minutes on the big new terrace before wandering back to get a drink. I catch the goal through the window, having just got my drink. "AH, TYPICAL", shouts a man at the bar who'd had his back turned. A tackle in the build up has infuriated the Chesham players, who are still surrounding the referee as I emerge from the bar a minute later, drink in hand. It's still 1-0 by half-time, and Worthing have been comfortably the better team.

Furthermore, the news from thirty miles north is very good. Dorking are losing to Chelmsford. Worthing are top of the league by half-time, if you believe in live league tables. I suspect that the home supporters have been singing about this, but it's difficult to tell from the other end because they're completely drowned out by a drum. It's aggravating my tinnitus.

The first ten minutes of the second half are frantic, with Dorking scoring twice in the first five minutes of their half to leapfrog their way back to the top of the table. But Worthing are plugging away doing their own thing. Five minutes in, a decent cross from Odei and a header from close range Nash doubles their lead. A third arrives shortly afterwards, Wheeler crossing for Babalola to score.

The rest of the second half plays out at a slightly more ambling pace. Midway through the news starts to filter through that Chelmsford have equalised at Dorking. The drum starts up again. And as Worthing run down the clock against Chesham, there's nothing further to report from the other match either. Worthing finish the day top of the National League South.

Since it's treat day for me, I take the train the two-minute journey back to where I live. Despite not being in any hurry whatsoever and stopping off at a shop on the way back, I'm back well before six. This is what being a football supporter feels like, for most. It may involve stopping off at a pub before, after or both, being on their own or with friends, but ultimately it's all usually at least local and convenient. I'm surprised at how unfamiliar this all feels to me.

By this summer, I’ll have lived in Worthing for ten years, and that feels like long enough. We moved here in the first place because it was as much as we could afford, but times have changed since then. A lot of water has passed under a lot of bridges since 2014. And while I’ve lived here this long, they’ve never felt like ‘my’ team. Perhaps it’s the red and white. That doesn’t help. But at a baser level, it just feels like they belong to someone else.

The club sit in a very particular micro-position in the football system. It might be that the true dividing line in English football nowadays is between the National League and its North and South sub-divisions. This is where football starts to feel authentically ‘non-league’, with the higher division feeling a modern evolution into Division Five while the lower ones almost occupy the places once taken by the Northern Premier and Southern Premier Leagues.

And teams being promoted into the National League should be warned that they are stepping up a significant level. The standard is higher, and I do worry that Worthing would do anything but struggle significantly should they go up. But then, what are they supposed to do? Stop playing this season in order to avoid it? Turn it down should they win the league this season? No. Don’t be so ridiculous. They go up, they give it a go, they learn from the experience and they either survive or they don’t.

The club has lifted off since the pandemic. First, fourth and third. Over the three seasons prior to this one they’ve scored 296 league goals. Home crowds are well into four figures, when a decade ago they couldn’t reliably attract much more than a couple of hundred for home matches at times. I went to a few games there during those years and earlier. It was a very different football club to today. Worthing will never be my home team, but they’re a credit to those who call them that.

Might this be the last time that I watch this Worthing team play at home as a resident of the town myself? It’s certainly not inconceivable, and it’s certainly more so than at just about any other point over the previous decade of my life. But that’s just getting ahead of myself. The cards are still only just starting to land. Perhaps it’s sometimes just better to focus on being in the present. And in the present, Worthing are top of the league. There’s still plenty of room for further jump cuts over the closing quarter of this race. But for now, they’re top. And on this evidence, they deserve it.

It’s easy to feel daunted by what’s ahead. But bringing my best game goes a long way. I don’t feel as though I have to resign myself to this nomadic football lifestyle, but while my cards are only just landing it’s best to address what’s in front of me first. Probably the best thing to do is just to take a break from the stresses of daily life, have those couple of pints, and watch a football match of fair-to-middling quality. Mission accomplished, I guess.