Sutton v Arsenal: greatest giant killers and a look at non-leaguers of the past and

By Tony Attwood

Of course there was a time when Arsenal were regularly knocked out of the FA Cup by teams from lower leagues: Chapman’s league champions were knocked out by Wallsall, in 1933.  Later the club was undone by Northampton Town in 1958, Sheffield Utd in 1959, Rotherham Utd in 1960, Sunderland in 1961, Peterborough in 1965, Birmingham in 1967, Birmingham again in 1968.

After that we got away with it for a while until York in 1985 and Wrexham in 1992.  Clubs like Wrexham still mark the event as one of the greatest moments in their club’s history.  It happens.

And as we all now know, because lots of people looked it up, Lincoln are the first non-league club to reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup since Queens Park Rangers in 1914.

I don’t think many went beyond that point however to ask, for example, what the FA Cup was like in 1913/14.  Or come to that what professional football was like, but it is an interesting diversion.  If you don’t like diversions, do look away now.

In essence when QPR did what Lincoln have done and what Sutton aim to do, there were two full time professional leagues – the first and second divisions of the Football League.   Beyond that was the still powerful semi-pro Southern League – a league that had gained a lot of quality players in the previous few years by standing outside of the pernicious “retain and transfer” rules established after Royal Arsenal won a landmark court case against one of its players – George Davie – over whether they had to pay him or not.  Not Arsenal’s finest moment given that they were a club set up by and for the players, not the pernicious owners who ruled elsewhere.

Much of the Southern League of that era eventually became the 3rd Division (South) of the Football League and by this time it was made up of names that will be familiar to us now…  Here’s the league table for the year QPR got to the quarter finals.  There were two points for a win, and clubs with equal points were separated by dividing goals for by goals against to get a “goal average”.

What we can see are such current Premier League luminaries as Crystal Palace, West Ham and Southampton in the league.  Indeed the only club to have dropped out of Football League activity from this list of nearly 100 years ago is Merthyr who in this season were relegated with Coventry to Division 2 of the Southern League.

Pos	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	G.Av	Pts
1	Swindon Town	38	21	8	9	81	41	1.98	50
2	Crystal Palace	38	17	16	5	60	32	1.88	50
3	Northampton Town	38	14	19	5	50	37	1.35	47
4	Reading	38	17	10	11	43	36	1.19	44
5	Plymouth Argyle	38	15	13	10	46	42	1.10	43
6	West Ham United	38	15	12	11	61	60	1.02	42
7	Brighton & Hove Albion	38	15	12	11	43	45	0.96	42
8	Queens Park Rangers	38	16	9	13	45	43	1.05	41
9	Portsmouth	38	14	12	12	57	48	1.19	40
10	Cardiff City	38	13	12	13	46	42	1.10	38
11	Southampton	38	15	7	16	55	54	1.02	37
12	Exeter City	38	10	16	12	39	38	1.03	36
13	Gillingham	38	13	9	16	48	49	0.98	35
14	Norwich City	38	9	17	12	49	51	0.96	35
15	Millwall	38	11	12	15	51	56	0.91	34
16	Southend United	38	10	12	16	41	66	0.62	32
17	Bristol Rovers	38	10	11	17	46	67	0.69	31
18	Watford	38	10	9	19	50	56	0.89	29
19	Merthyr Town	38	9	10	19	38	61	0.62	28
20	Coventry City	38	6	14	18	43	68	0.63	26

As for Woolwich Arsenal they were playing in their first season at Highbury, but retained the old name for a while longer finally changing it between 20 and 23 April 1914 to The Arsenal.  We went out of the cup in the first round that season on 10 January 1914 losing 2-0 away to Bradford City.

As for the forthcoming game, it is a match in which virtually everyone is against us.  The rest of the Premier League, all the media, all their allies in the aaa…  that’s how it goes these days.  In fact I am getting to think the number of people who actually want Arsenal to win is down to the readership of Untold – and some of those are known to write odd comments.

So what of Sutton?  Unlike Lincoln who are an ex-League team, and who look like going back to the Football League fairly soon, Sutton have eternally been non-league.

Sutton went through the classic route in local leagues, and then the Athenian League one of the classic amateur leagues which finally folded in 1984 with the unstoppable advance of semi-pro football.  Sutton went to the Isthmian League in 1964 and the Conference in 1986 falling back in 1991 ending up later in the Conference South.   They won the National League South in 2015–16, and so are in the National League for the first time.

They have played in two Amateur Cup finals and the FA Trophy final.  In 1989 they beat Coventry 2-1 in the third round – Coventry had won the Cup two seasons earlier and were establishing themselves as a solid mid-table in the first division at the time.  Some writers consider this the biggest FA Cup upset in the history of FA Cup upsets.

Here are their exploits so far this season in the Cup

October	4th Premliminary Round
Sat 15	3.00	H	Forest Green Rovers	FAC	751	W	2-1
November	1st round
Sat 5	3.00	A	Dartford	FAC	1689	W	6-3
December	2nd round
Sat 3	3.00	H	Cheltenham Town	FAC	2224	W	2-1
January	3rd and 4th rounds
Sat 7	3.00	H	AFC Wimbledon	FAC	5013	D	0-0
Tue 17	7.45	A	AFC Wimbledon	FAC	4768	W	3-1
Sun 29	2.00	H	Leeds United	FAC	4997	W	1-0

Since the Leeds game they have played four games, two in the FA Trophy and two in the National League…

February
Sat 4	3.00	H	Boreham Wood	FAT	879	D	0-0
Tue 7	7.45	A	Boreham Wood	FAT	269	L	0-5
Sat 11	3.00	A	Solihull Moors	NL	671	L	0-3
Tue 14	7.45	A	Guiseley	NL	664	L	1-2

It looks like their minds are elsewhere.  In fact their last ten games consist of six defeats, three wins and a draw.  Here is their league table…

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Lincoln City	30	20	4	6	61	31	30	64
2	Dagenham & Redbridge	32	19	4	9	57	36	21	61
3	Forest Green Rovers	32	17	9	6	64	39	25	60
4	Tranmere Rovers	31	18	6	7	45	26	19	60
5	Dover Athletic	32	17	5	10	64	48	16	56
6	Barrow	32	14	12	6	50	32	18	54
7	Aldershot Town	33	15	9	9	43	31	12	54
8	Gateshead	33	14	10	9	55	35	20	52
9	Macclesfield Town	31	15	5	11	44	31	13	50
10	Wrexham	34	12	10	12	34	42	-8	46
11	Bromley	32	13	6	13	41	45	-4	45
12	Chester	33	11	10	12	51	47	4	43
13	Boreham Wood	32	11	10	11	32	30	2	43
14	Solihull Moors	33	12	7	14	45	48	-3	43
15	Eastleigh	32	10	12	10	43	41	2	42
16	Braintree Town	32	10	7	15	35	51	-16	37
17	Sutton United	30	10	6	14	32	41	-9	36

However they are doing better at home than away.  Here’s the home results.

		GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Lincoln City	16	11	3	2	36	13	+23	36
2	Wrexham	18	10	4	4	21	16	+5	34
3	Aldershot Town	16	10	3	3	25	11	+14	33
4	Barrow	16	9	5	2	28	11	+17	32
5	Tranmere	15	10	2	3	21	12	+9	32
6	Dover Athletic	16	9	3	4	36	24	+12	30
7	Sutton	15	9	3	3	21	15	+6	30