This is the 2^nd part of an article I posted a few days ago. In the first part, I examined why no African team has ever won the World Cup. In this second part, I will look at what African teams can do to improve their chances of winning the World Cup.

Teams Without an Identity

Brazil has Joga Bonito or “Samba Football”, Italy has Catenaccio, Holland has Total Football, Spain has “Tiki-Taka”, and win, lose, or draw; the relentless pressure fighters of Argentina, Mexico, and Uruguay always engage their opponents in a 90 minute long street fight. Many European and South American teams have an institutionalised pattern of play which endures regardless of changes in coaching and playing personnel.

Which African team has a clearly articulated and visible pattern of play that is synonymous with them? None. An African team’s paying style usually lasts as long as the current coach is in charge and changes as soon as a new coach is appointed.

This lack of an identifiable playing style also gives fuel to European “expert” football pundits who fill our TV time with gormless “They have lots of pace and power” narratives about every single African team – even if half of the team are 5’6 tall plodding anorexics.

Let's talk about how we talk about African teams and black soccer players. How often do you hear "high soccer IQ"? How often do you hear "pace and power"? (With a nod to the late, great Stephen Keshi.) pic.twitter.com/VeiofxNNUX

— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) June 23, 2019

The teams who have won the World Cup in the last 25 years possessed two attributes: (1) a pattern of play that was drilled into their players from childhood; and (2) a national elite coaching centre where the country’s best young players were trained and which acted as an “Ivy League” school for the country’s best footballers. African countries have neither.

France’s football academy at Clairefontaine trained several of the players that were in its squads that reached the 1998, 2006, and 2018 World Cup finals. 7 players that played for Spain in the 2010 World Cup final were graduates of Barcelona’s famed La Masia football academy (Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Segio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Pedro, and Cesc Fabregas).

African teams do not have a carved in stone pattern of play because of three reasons:

1) Most African countries do not have football coaching centres of excellence like France’s Clairefontaine; where an institutionalised playing ethos can be implanted into young players;

2) Their insistence on hiring European coaches; and

3) African football academies are businesses committed to producing players that can be sold to the highest European bidder, rather than for producing national team players.

Outside Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa, most African football clubs and leagues are either owned by the government, or by private businesses that use them as a vanity project. Wall to wall coverage of the English Premier League, La Liga, and the Bundesliga means that local TV broadcasters prioritise spending lots of money on buying TV rights to European football leagues, and invest less in their own leagues. European clubs can invest these vast revenues into their academies and into producing the footballers of tomorrow. Conversely, most African football clubs do not have the commercial revenues to engage in such projects. The end result is that most African football fans fervently follow and watch European football teams on TV, and have never watched their local hometown club (if that club is even on TV). This prioritisation of Europe is not limited to TV coverage.

Most African national teams are managed by European coaches. However, an expatriate European coach who does not speak any languages of the African country he coaches, and who is on a short-term contract, does not have the time or incentive to institutionalise a consistent style of play that will survive him. Only indigenous coaches who understand the culture and mentality of their players can drill the players to consistently play one way that best suits the players.

It is scandalous that African FAs do not place more faith in their indigenous coaches; especially as the most fluid and well drilled African team of this century had an indigenous coach. On January 29, 2004 Egypt lost an Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) match 1-2 to their north African rivals Algeria. This was significant because Egypt did not lose another AFCON match for the next 15 years. Egypt won three successive AFCON championships. The coach who led this unprecedented era of success was Hassan Shehata. Shehata’s achievement was all the more impressive because Egypt’s era of dominance overlapped with Ivory Coast’s “Golden Generation” of Drogba, the Toure brothers, Salomon Kalou, and Gervinho. Egypt emphatically beat that brilliant Ivory Coast team twice during that winning AFCON sequence.

That (pre-Mohammed Salah) Egyptian team had the discipline and tactical sophistication to make an impact at the World Cup. It was the most organised team in Africa between 2006-2010. To some extent Egypt was the “Spain of Africa” during that era. Like Spain (who relied on a core of Barcelona players), the core of Egypt’s squad was also drawn from one team: the serial African champions Al-Ahly (Africa’s equivalent of Real Madrid). Al-Ahly won the African Champions League 5 times in the 8 years between 2005 and 2013. About 8-9 members of Egypt’s treble AFCON winning team played for that brilliant Al-Ahly team (such as Mohammed Aboutrika, Essam al-Hadary, Mohammed Shawky, Wael Gomaa, Ibrahim Said, Mohammed Barakat, Emad Motaeb, and Hossam Hassan). Egypt could do this because Al-Ahly was that rarest of African teams: a rich team, with a massive fanbase, that could pay its players enough to keep its squad together and prevent them from migrating to Europe.

To some extent, this World Cup is Africa’s most prolific World Cup as African teams have won a record 8 games; including victories over world champions France, Brazil, Belgium (who finished third at the last World Cup), and Spain. Every single African team won at least one game, and Cameroon and Tunisia were unfortunate to be eliminated despite losing only 1 game. It is pertinent that this success came at a time when all 5 African countries appointed indigenous coaches to lead them at the World Cup. Morocco’s current coach Walid Regragui was appointed only 3 games before the World Cup started. He coached Wydad Casablanca to win the African Champions League before taking the national team job.

“Naïve” African Teams

European football commentators are fond of describing African teams as “naïve”. Although it is tempting to dismiss this as patronising European references to Africa, the truth hurts. African teams’ results at the World Cup tell only a partial story. The manner in which African teams lose is very illuminating. African teams have perfected the art of playing better than the opposition but still losing the game. There is a 32 year long catalogue of African teams grasping defeat from the jaws of victory with brain fart calamities at critical times.

When businesses conclude a deal that went badly, or have a year where profits dip; they usually conduct a retrospective review to discover why, and to prevent its reoccurrence. African football teams should do the same:

• Cameroon v England (1990) – with only 7 minutes left, Cameroon was 2-1 up against England and on the verge of being the first African team to reach the World Cup semi-final. Instead of shitting up shop, Cameroon continued attacking, gave away two clumsy penalties, and lost the game 3-2.
  

• Nigeria v Italy (1994) – Nigeria was 1-0 up against Italy in the 90^th minute and on the verge of reaching he quarter-final in its first World Cup appearance. Then lost concentration in the last minute, conceded a late equaliser to Roberto Baggio, then conceded a penalty in extra time to 10 man Italy and lost 2-1.

• Ghana v Uruguay (2010) – Although the public has made Luis Suarez the villain of this game, as Suarez has pointed out; it was not him who missed the crucial penalty for Ghana with the last kick of the game. Even after Suarez stop a goalbound Ghana shot on the line with his hands, the game was still in Ghana’s hands. They were facing a Uruguay team that was down to 10 men and without its star striker. Ghana also had the additional advantage of a penalty with the last kick of the game, and could have killed off Uruguay instantly by converting the penalty – since there was no time left for Uruguay to equalise. Instead, Asamoah Gyan blazed the penalty against the crossbar, the game went to penalties, and Ghana contrived to lose the game from a position where it seemed impossible.
  
  

• At the 2018 World Cup, there was an astonishing sequence of African teams conceding winning (for the opposition) goals in the dying minutes of games. African teams conceded goals in the 95^th (twice), 91^st (twice again), 90^th, , 86^th, 78^th, and 74^th minutes. Conceding 8 goals in the last 15 minutes of the game in the group phase alone, is so alarming that it points to something fundamentally wrong with African teams.
  

There are two primary reasons (one visible and the other insidious) that explain why African teams are susceptible to late goals. I will examine these in the next part of this series.

Spoiler alert: if you want to read an article about African football featuring the archetypal video footage of barefoot African children playing on a bobbly dusty pitch, or an African player talking about his poverty stricken upbringing – stop reading now! There will be none of that here. Conversely, if you want to read an article about African football with deep analysis, revealing historical insights, and lots of information you probably do not know – then keep reading…

African players can take the blame and the credit for proving the greatest player of all time wrong, every day of the week for the past 22 years. When Pele made his now infamous prediction that an African country would win the World Cup before the year 2000, it did not seem bizarre. Yet, 22 years after 2000, not only has no African country won the World Cup, no African country has reached the quarter-finals since 2010. Even Asia has progressed further than Africa as South Korea reached the semi-final 20 years ago.

African countries have produced some of the World Cup’s most iconic moments: such as Cameroon stunning world champions Argentina on the opening day of the 1990 tournament, and Cameroon were only 7 minutes away from beating England and reaching the semi-final before two Gary Lineker penalties eliminated Cameroon.

Then came Rashidi Yekini’s spine tingling celebration after scoring Nigeria’s first ever World Cup goal in 1994:

🇳🇬 Remembering Rashidi Yekini, scorer of @NGSuperEagles's first #WorldCup goal, who was born on this day in 1963.

We'll never forget his celebration at USA 1994. pic.twitter.com/DFtL8wSWeK

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) October 23, 2019

History repeated again in 2002 when the late Papa Bouba Diop’s goal helped  Senegal beat world champions France on the opening day of the 2002 tournament, before Senegal reached the quarter-final:

Ghana also emulated Cameroon and Senegal in 2010 when it also reached the quarter-final.

As a bonus I have also included a video of gratuitous violence: Benjamin Massing of Cameroon’s tackle on Argentina’s Claudio Cannigia in 1990 that resembled a gangland contract hit more than a tackle on a sports field:

On this day 1990, Claudio Caniggia needed the magic sponge after he was left in a heap by Benjamin Massingpic.twitter.com/pxn8Y30vvJ

— Old Days Football (@OldDaysFootball) June 8, 2021

Despite these presumed breakthrough moments, why have African teams not been able to transition from creating entertaining memories at the World Cup to actually winning it?

It cannot be a lack of talent. The best player in the Premier League is an African, several African players have won the Champions League, and African players currently play for the champions of England, Germany, France, Italy, and Portugal. Ironically, African football teams became less successful at the World Cup when their individual players’ profiles hit at an all time high.

Those who like simple, binary solutions should look away now! There is no single reason why no African country has won the World Cup. Instead, there are many. For ease of reference, I have grouped them into things that are the fault of African countries, and things outside their control.

Self-Sabotaging FAs

If there was a manual on how to sabotage a national football team, many African football associations would be best selling authors of it. Time and time again, African FAs have created poisonous relations with their footballers (who are accustomed to first class superstar treatment while playing for their European clubs) by getting into bonus rows with players, not arranging adequate accommodation or training facilities for players, or interfering with the coach’s job by forcing him to pick or drop players he does not want to. Although I could write an entire book about African FAs, I will spare you that and limit myself to the worst examples of corrupt incompetence by African FAs.

At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, a row between Ghana’s football association and players over unpaid bonuses led Ghana’s layers to threaten to boycott and forfeit their final group game against Portugal. The row became so incendiary that it was resolved only when Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama intervened and arranged for $3 million in cash to be flown by a private jet from Ghana to the players in Brazil, then delivered to them by cars under police escort just before the Portugal game. Some of the players kept $100,000 in cash in their bags in the dressing room. An embarrassing photo of Ghana player John Boye kissing a large bundle of cash after receiving his bonus payment went viral online.

The reader may wonder why a multi-millionaire professional footballer cares about what they get paid for playing for their country, and consider them as greedy. There are at least two reasons why bonus payments matter to African footballers. Firstly, bonus payments to African players often get siphoned off and shared amongst a host of hangers attached to the national team, FA, and government. Players feel cheated when others take money that was earned by them putting their bodies on the line while playing for their country. Secondly, African players are also subject to financial commitments and pressures that the average European player will never encounter. While a European star player usually uses his fortune to provide for his wife and proverbial 2.4 children, a star African player is also expected to provide for his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, extended family, people from his hometown, and also be a philanthropist. Current and retired African footballers such as Sadio Mane, Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba, and Nwankwo Kanu have contributed vast sums of money to building and funding hospitals, schools, and charities in their countries.

The Coaching Turnstile

Keeping track of African national team coaches is an exercise in observing turnstile vacancies appear and disappear.

A favourite tactic of African FAs is to appoint a coach 3-4 years before the World Cup. The coach usually builds a rapport with the players, implements his tactics and pattern of play, and qualifies his team for the World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). Due to the AFCON’s scheduling, it usually occurs about 6 months before the World Cup. If said coach does not win the AFCON, his FA usually fires him, and appoints a new coach who then comes in and rips up the tactical blueprint and formation that the prior coach used and drilled the players in during the previous 4 years. The poor players then have to play in a new unaccustomed system, for a coach they do not know, while simultaneously dealing with the small matter of facing the best teams in the world at the World Cup. Even the much heralded Morocco team at this World Cup is playing for a coach (Walid Regragui) who was appointed 3 months before the World Cup started. Regragui managed Morocco in only 3 matches before the World Cup started.

Nigeria is a notorious example in this regard. Nigeria has qualified for the World Cup on 6 different occasions. Yet only 3 times has the coach who led the qualifying campaign also led the team to the World Cup. In 1998, 2002, and 2010, the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) fired the coach 6 months or less before the World Cup started, and Nigeria went to the World Cup to play the likes of Argentina, Croatia, Denmark, and England with a coach who had met the players only a few times before the World Cup.

As if these prior examples were not enough, after qualifying for this year’s AFCON and reaching the final round of qualifying for this year’s World Cup, the NFF essentially sabotaged its own team by firing Nigeria’s coach who had made progress with the team during the past 5 years just before the AFCON. The outcome was ugly. Nigeria (which had reached at least the semi-final of the AFCON 14 times in 17 tournaments) crashed out of the AFCON in the 2^nd round to a very average Tunisia team, and then failed to score a goal from open play in 180 minutes of football against an also average Ghana team in their World Cup qualifying play-off; culminating in Nigeria’s failure to qualify for the World Cup for only the second time in 28 years.

Most African countries have an incredible number of ethnic groups and languages, and multiple religious and other sectarian divides that make Northern Ireland, Israel v Palestine, and Celtic v Rangers seem like polite dinner parties. For example, over 800 languages (over 10% of all languages in the world) are spoken in Cameroon and Nigeria alone. Convincing the public that the national team coach selected players purely on merit, and without ethnic or religious bias; is a delicate act with massive ramifications that can affect national stability. It is much easier to employ a European coach with no local ethnic or religious loyalties (or axes to grind) in the African country he coaches, since he cannot be accused of ethnic bias. The logic is sound, but the execution is not.

Employing European coaches would be justifiable if African FAs hired the next Ferguson or Guardiola. However, for some head scratching reason they hire utterly dire journeyman D level European coaches. For example, Nigeria’s striker Victor Osimhen spent the last few years being coached at Napoli by a knowledgeable tactician like Luciano Spalletti, then showed up to national team duty to be coached by a German coach called Gernot Rohr who had never managed in a top four European league or won a trophy, and who got the Nigerian team job after winning nothing with Gabon, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

Appointing a coach without elite experience to coach a squad of European based superstars at the World Cup, is probably not going to end well.

Snakes and Ladders

None of Africa’s five best players is at this World Cup. Apart from Sadio Mane who is out injured, Mohammed Salah (Egypt), Riyad Mahrez (Algeria), Victor Osimhen (Nigeria), and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon) are fit, but not playing at this World Cup because their countries did not qualify. The reasons for that lie in the most gruelling and laborious World Cup qualification system in the world.

It is actually easier to qualify for the World Cup in Europe than in Africa. In Europe seeding generally keeps teams apart, and most decent countries can rack up cricket scores in qualifying games against mighty footballing giants like Andorra, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and the Faroe Islands (some of whom have won only 1-2 games from the last 200 they have played). Of the 32 teams in the World Cup, about 40-60% (since the 1982 World Cup) are usually from Europe, and about 50% of teams in South America’s CONMEBOL confederation automatically qualify for the World Cup (in South America – it is almost harder not to qualify for the World Cup!).

In contrast, until the 1982 World Cup, Africa got to send only 1 or 2 teams to the World Cup. FIFA now allots only 5 World Cup places for Africa’s 55 countries. This means that 90% of African national teams cannot qualify for the World Cup.

African World Cup cut-throat snakes and ladders qualifiers are almost designed to ensure that Africa’s best teams never make it to the World Cup.

To whittle 55 countries down to 5, African football has a byzantine and exhausting three step qualification process. The first step is a two-legged knockout round. The winners from this round then advance to a group phase (of 10 groups). In Europe and South America, finishing top of a qualifying group means automatic qualification for the World Cup, whereas in Africa; it merely introduces a new way of being eliminated. Only the winners of each African qualifying group advance to the third round; which again reverts to a knockout cup format. The paucity of slots for African teams at the World Cup makes African World Cup qualifying extremely competitive and cut-throat, with zero margin for error. The knockout games render the top teams vulnerable to shocks/upsets, and ensure that the best teams do not make it to the World Cup. Rarely are the 5 African World Cup qualifiers the best 5 teams in Africa because the top African teams often get placed in the same group.

Because Africa has only 5 World Cup places, its countries end up in “Celebrity Death Match” groups against each other. The excellent and fluid Egyptian team that won the AFCOn 3 times in a row between 2006 and 2010 were grouped with their fierce rivals Algeria in the qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup. In the final group qualification match, Egypt had to beat group leaders Algeria by at least two goals in a north African knockout derby. Those who are interested can read here for the background to the Egypt-Algeria rivalry.

The game was played in in front of a frenzied crowd of 100,000 and was so tense that the governments of both countries threatened diplomatic action against each other. Egypt won after scoring a 95th minute goal that sparked a pitch invasion.

Yet, that victory was still not enough for Egypt to qualify for the World Cup. Egypts win left them tied with Algeria on points, goal difference, and head-to-head results! The two teams therefore had to play a third tie-breaker play-off game on neutral territory (in Sudan!). Algeria caused an upset when they beat Egypt – meaning that perhaps the best African team of this century never played at the World Cup.

One of the qualifying groups for the last World Cup had Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Zambia. That group consisted of 4 of the last 5 African champions and the highest ranked African country at the time. A European equivalent would be Spain, France, Portugal, and Belgium in the same World Cup qualifying group from which only one of them could qualify!

Due to such blood and thunder qualifying campaigns, most African teams are usually emotionally and physically exhausted by the time they arrive at the World Cup after a gruelling qualifying campaign and playing the AFCON only 6 months before the World Cup. It is because of cut-throat qualifying incidents like this that African countries are begging FIFA for more World Cup spots.

The “Europeanisation” of African Football

20-30 years ago, most African international footballers either played for clubs based in Africa, and those who played for European clubs had first built their club careers in Africa before making a name for themselves and being signed by an African club. These days, it is rare to find an African footballer at the World Cup who has played a full season of football in an African league. Most African footballers playing in Europe go straight from African youth academies as young boys or teenagers to European clubs, and do not bother playing professional club football in Africa. Examples of players who travelled this African academy to Europe road include Thomas Partey of Ghana and Arsenal and Wilfried Ndidi of Nigeria and Leicester City.

African academies do not exist to produce players for their national team or domestic league. Instead they exist purely as factories for producing assembly line clone African players suitable for European football teams.

Many other African players were born and raised in Europe and have never lived in the African country they play for. For example, Kalidou Koulibaly and Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang were born and raised in France and played for France at under-21 or under-20 level before opting to play for Senegal and Gabon. Hakim Ziyech was born in Holland and played for Holland’s under-19, under-20, and under-21 teams before representing Morocco at full adult international level. Many dual-national African players often opt to play for an African country only after it becomes apparent that they will not be first choice for the European country in which they were born.

This “Europeanisation” of African football means that most African players now come in two models: those trained in African academies to be a good fit for a European club, and those who grew up in Europe that European coaches have pre-drilled to play to a tactical European style (a good example is how Mourinho drilled a teenage Mikel who was a playmaking number 10, to instead become a defensive midfield destroyer). Nowadays most African teams are “Diet Europe”. Instead of playing with their own style, African countries come to the World Cup African and try to “out-Europe” the European teams with identical playing styles.

Groups of Death

Some challenges that African countries experience are not of their making. One of these is FIFA’s ranking and seeding system. Because African countries are ranked lower than their European and South American counterparts, they are always unseeded and are placed in pot 3 or 4 for the World Cup draw; inevitably meaning that African teams get drawn in a “Group of Death” with two “superpower” teams from Europe and South America. Hence Ivory Coast’s excellent Drogba-Toure et al team got put in horrible groups with Argentina, Holland, and Serbia (2006) and Brazil and Portugal (2010), while Nigeria has been placed in the same group as Argentina in 5 of the 6 World Cups that Nigeria has played in. The African hard luck story got even more bizarre at the 2018 World Cup after Senegal lost only one game and finished level on points and goal difference with Japan. However, Senegal was eliminated because its players had picked up 1 more yellow card than Japan during the tournament (yellow cards which were actually harshly awarded against Senegal’s players while playing Japan). Senegal was the first team in the 92 year history of the World Cup to be eliminated in such a manner.

Prior to the 1998 World Cup, Tunisia may have considered themselves the unluckiest team in the world. Their best defender (Abdennour) and star attacker (Msakni) got injured before the World Cup and missed the tournament. Then their goalkeeper joined them on the injured list, and the reserve goalkeeper got injured 15 minutes into Tunisia’s first World Cup game and was also ruled out of the tournament. Then in Tunisia’s second game two of their players were seriously injured and stretchered off in the first half.

The Man In Black 

In addition to being in Groups of Death, African countries have also been on the receiving end of some absolutely appalling and baffling refereeing decisions. While English football fans are still apoplectic about Maradona’s handball goal against England in 1986 (36 years ago – before most of them were born!), African countries have a catalogue of refereeing grievances that the officials should hang their heads in shame for.

“a criminal act. It’s even worse than what Suarez did”

Nigeria played France in round 2 of the 2014 World Cup. The score was 0-0 in the second half and Nigeria’s midfielder Eddy Onazi was running the show until France’s Blaise Matuidi pole-axed Onazi with this shocking studs up, horror ankle breaker “tackle” that led to Onazi being stretchered off and put in plaster cast. For some unknown reason the American referee Mark Geiger (who was standing 2 yards away) did not send off Matuidi.

Diego Maradona (who has no axe to grind in a match between France and Nigeria) was so outraged by Matuidi’s assault on Onazi that he appeared in public with a photo of Matuidi’s studs stamping down on Onazi’s ankle and said “It is impossible that the referee did not see this challenge as a criminal act. It’s even worse than what Suarez did (biting Chiellini).”

The game completely changed after Onazi was stretchered off and France (with Matuidi who should not have been on the pitch) scored 2 late goals to win the game.

“VAR is Bull—it!” – Spain v Morocco (2018 World Cup)

The refereeing (if organised incompetence can be called that) in the Morocco v Spain game at the last World Cup in 2018 was the closest thing to match fixing I have ever seen on live TV.

Apart from the host of errors in the video above, the tragi-comic officiating culminated in the 92^nd minute with Morocco winning 2-1. The ball went out of play for a Moroccan goal kick deep into injury time at the end of the game. The referee incorrectly gave Spain a corner. With the referee pointing to the left corner, and the Moroccan players facing the way he was pointing, Spain then took a quick corner from the opposite side of the pitch to where the ball went out of play, and scored a 92^nd minute equaliser from it. The linesman disallowed it for offside, but VAR overruled him, and incredibly, the referee and VAR allowed Spain’s goal to stand despite the plethora of errors and rule breaking that preceded it.

It was so farcical that it provoked Nordin Amrabat (the older brother of Sofyan Amrabat who is in the current Morocco team) into his now infamous “VAR is bull—-!” comment into a TV camera after the game (which became a meme).

This was part 1 of this. In the 2^nd part I will examine what African countries can do to optimise their chances of winning the World Cup.

FA VASE: WOODFORD TOWN –V- FAKENHAM TOWN

3pm: Saturday November 12, 2022

Ashton Playing Fields, 598 Chigwell Road, Woodford Green, IG8 8AA

Since elite professional football gets so much attention, I like to give coverage to grassroots football. Today I will feature an FA Vase match between two clubs that play at Step 5 of the amateur football pyramid. The FA Vase is a nationwide football competition for amateur English teams playing at Steps 5-6 of the pyramid (their equivalent of the FA Cup).

Woodford Town: One Club – Many Histories

The home team Woodford Town has quite a history. It is one of those “phoenix clubs” that has gone out of existence and reformed multiple times. The original Woodford Town was formed 85 years ago in 1937 and played in several leagues such as the Southern, Spartan, Athenian, and Essex Senior Leagues. Some former famous professionals such as Jimmy Greaves (who won the World Cup with England), Johnny Haynes, and Joe Kinnear played for Woodford. Jimmy Greaves’ father was also the club’s chairman.

Woodford’s Sunday Team

In Woodford Town’s heyday about 50 years ago, it was a very successful team and played in the Southern League at a time when it was a feeder league into professional football (before the National League was formed). Woodford Town also operated a successful Sunday team which won the famous Hackney & Leyton Sunday League in 1973 (while its reserve team also won Division 1 of that league in the same season). Since Sunday teams normally play on public parks, many of Woodford’s Sunday league opponents would switch their home fixtures to Woodford’s stadium on Snakes Lane (which it shared with the Saturday team) – even when though the opposition were the home team! They did this to have the luxury of playing in a “proper” stadium rather than the muddy bumpy pitches at Hackney Marshes or other parks. Woodford’s Sunday team also entered the national FA Sunday Cup competition in the 1973-74 season, and was good enough to beat the highly rated Arras FC from Middlesex en route to the quarter-final; where it lost 1-2 to Robin Hood’s Retreat from Bristol. Robin Hood’s Retreat fans were quite a lively and fun loving bunch, who came to their team’s matches dressed as Robin Hood and his merry bunch of outlaws! (including Friar Tuck and Maid Marian) Keeping in character, when their team scored, they would run onto the pitch brandishing mock swords. This is quite a long way from vuvuzelas and flares in the modern game!

Back to Woodford Town…

The Years of Darkness

Woodford’s history got dark and murky in the 1990s and early 2000s. Firstly, the club was evicted from its Snakes Lane stadium in 1993, and the stadium was destroyed in a fire in 1996. In 2003, the Essex Senior League expelled Woodford from the league after Woodford finished bottom of the league three seasons in a row between 2001-2003 (and 2^nd from bottom four seasons before in 2000). Woodford could hardly complain as they took some awful beatings during that era; such as a 0-15 loss to Stansted in the 2001-2 season, and Chris Stevens of Ilford scored 8 goals against them in a 9-0 massacre the prior season. The club was dissolved and disappeared after this expulsion from the Essex Senior League.

After this, Woodford’s story got even more complicated. It has had three different existences:

1. The original club that played between 1937 and 2003;
2. A reformed club that played between 2016-2017; and
3. The third (present) club that plays under the Woodford Town name.

The current team is an alchemy of several different clubs with various legacies. For those who do not like detail – be warned as the story is about to get very detailed and confusing!

The Second Woodford Town Era (2016-2017)

Woodford Town’s second existence inadvertently had its roots in the same year it was dissolved. In 2003 Soner Mustafa formed an under-12s youth football team called Bush Hill Rangers; which played in north London. In 2007 an adults’ team called Goffs Oak was founded and started playing in the Premier Division of the Hertford & District League in Hertfordshire. After Goffs Oak gained promotion to the Hertfordshire Senior County League in 2010, it won Division 1 of that league at the first attempt and gained promotion to the Premier Division (Step 7).

By now the young boys that played for the Bush Hill Rangers youth team were approaching their late teens and looking to progress into adult football. Goffs Oak and Bush Hill Rangers reached an agreement in 2011 whereby Bush Hill Rangers would play as Goffs Oak’s reserve team. Bush Hill Rangers was renamed Goffs Oak Reserves and won Reserve Division 1 of the Hertfordshire Senior County League at the first attempt in the 2011-2012 season. The following year Goffs Oak‘s first and reserve teams merged and the successor club resumed using the Bush Hill Rangers name.

Then in 2014, Bush Hill Rangers gained promotion to Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League (Step 6), and changed its name to “Woodford Town” in 2015 after merging with a youth football club of the same name. The club regarded itself as a resurrection of the original Woodford Town FC, and although it won the Middlesex Premier Cup in 2016, it played only one season under that name before dissolving due to being unable to continue playing at its new home stadium at Goldsdown Road in Brimsdown (the former home stadium of Brimsdown Rovers). With that, Woodford Town FC died for a second time.

…but only for one year

Summary of Second Woodford Town Era:

• 2003: Bush Hill Rangers formed as an under-12s youth team
• 2007: Goffs Oak FC founded and starts playing in the Premier Division of the Hertford & District League
• 2010: Goffs Oak is promoted to Hertfordshire Senior County League
• 2011 Goffs Oak and Bush Hill Rangers reach agreement for Bush Hill Rangers to become Goffs Oak’s reserve team
• 2012: Goffs Oak and Bush Hill Rangers merge, with the successor club being called Bush Hill Rangers
• 2015: Bush Hill Rangers changed its name to Woodford Town
• 2018: Soner Mustafa resurrects the Bush Hill Rangers name and forms a new team called Bush Hill Rangers which wins Division 1 of the Hertfordshire Senior County League in its first season

The Third Woodford Town Era (2017- Present)

Woodford Town was born for a third time from an unlikely source. In 2000 a team called Mauritius Sports started playing in the London Intermediate League. Mauritius Sports was formed as a team for members of the Mauritius diaspora in London. In 2004 Mauritius Sports merged with former London Intermediate League champions CMB Metal Box FC to form Mauritius Sports (CMB). In 2007, Mauritius Sports merged again; this time with a Middlesex County League team called Walthamstow Avenue & Pennant. The merged club was renamed Mauritius Sports & Pennant. Confusingly, Walthamstow Avenue & Pennant was itself formed from a merger between two clubs: Walthamstow Avenue and Pennant (confused yet?!). At this stage, the club was an amalgamation of three teams (Mauritius Sports, Walthamstow Avenue,and Pennant).

The club changed its name a bewildering 6 more times in the next 10 years as follows: Mauritius Sports Association UK (2009), Haringey & Waltham Development (2011), Greenhouse London (2013), Greenhouse Sports (2015), Woodford Town 2017 (2017), before changing again to the present name of Woodford Town (2019).

If you wonder how “Greenhouse” got into the name, that occurred after the club became associated with the Greenhouse Bethwin charity, but had to abandon the name after severing its association with the charity.

After 8 name changes in 12 years, Woodford Town was back – playing in the Essex Senior League, just like the original club. The club’s chairman Tony Scott nostalgically wanted to return to its former stadium at Snakes Lane in Woodford, Essex. However, after being empty and disused for 26 years, the stadium was derelict and overgrown with weeds. Although floodlights were still at the stadium, the club could not redevelop it as it was on a flood plain, had drainage issues, and would require lots of renovation to comply with modern health and safety laws.

After decades of nomadic existence ground-sharing with other clubs and playing in far away locations such as Brimsdown in Middlesex and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, in 2021, the club instead found a new home at the newly renovated Ashton Playing Fields on Chigwell Road; which was a few minutes away from its old Snakes Lane stadium. After Redbridge Council invested £1.6 million to develop Ashton Playing Fields as a multi-sport athletics and football arena, with a stand that can host 250 spectators, Woodford Town returned to its original neighbourhood for the first time in 27 years.

Summary of Third Woodford Town Era:

• 2000: Mauritius Sports FC is formed
• 2004: Mauritius Sports merges with CMB Metal Box to become Mauritius Sports (CMB)
• 2007: Mauritius Sports merged with Walthamstow Avenue & Pennant to form Mauritius Sports & Pennant (Walthamstow Avenue & Pennant was itself created from mergers between Walthamstow Avenue & Leyton Pennant)
• 2009: Changed name to Mauritius Sports Association UK
• 2011: Changed name to Haringey & Waltham Development
• 2013: Changed name to Greenhouse London
• 2015: Changed name to Greenhouse Sports
• 2016: Changed name to Haringey & Waltham
• 2017: Changed name to Woodford Town

Woodford Town’s history is so convoluted that a forum user called “Forest Gump” created an info-graphic which he posted on the Nonleaguematters.com forum and in the Walthamstow FC programme when they played Woodford Town. Walthamstow’s history also intersects with Woodford Town’s (do not ask!).

Links Between the Present and the Past

While the new Woodford Town is adamant that it is a reincarnation of the original club (and the FA recognises its claim), the links are tenuous. It is basically a club that started life as a Mauritius diaspora football team, changed its name 8 times in just over a decade, until it found a historic name that resonated, stuck with it, then claimed to be the original Woodford Town reborn.

Nonetheless it has a tenuous parallel with the original club. The current manager Shane Baptiste played for the very successful Bancroft United and Eureka teams in the same Hackney & Leyton Sunday League that the Sunday team of the original Woodford Town played in. Baptiste won the league twice with both clubs, and also won the London FA Sunday Intermediate Cup with Eureka in 2009, and the Middlesex County League with Bethnal Green United (now Tower Hamlets FC) in the same year. While Baptiste manages Woodford Town on Saturdays, he also manages a talented young team called London All Stars on Sundays in the Essex Corinthian Sunday League.

You may wonder why I spent so much time discussing Woodford’s history. Well, its wild history was far more interesting than the FA Vase game I watched today. Woodford Town is currently in mid-table in the Essex Senior League (10^th place of 20 teams) while the away team Fakenham Town (from Norfolk) is in 6^th place (of 20 teams) in the Premier Division of the Eastern Counties League.

Ashton Playing Fields is not the most spectator friendly place to watch a football match. Since it is used for multiple sports and by Woodford Green Athletics Club With Essex Ladies, and for athletics events, the pitch is surrounded by an 8 lane running track, a long jump and triple jump ramp, and 2 sandpits. As such the stand and spectator areas are very far from the pitch. It is reminiscent of old east European stadia such as Red Star Belgrade.

“Is a training bib your kit?”

Alejandro Machado’s header gave Woodford the lead after 10 minutes. Thereafter the game on the pitch was attritional, and most of the entertainment came from the noisy band of drum beating Woodford fans. English football fans create notoriously witty chants and Woodford’s fans did not disappoint. They taunted Fakenham’s players with chants of: “Is a training bib your kit?” (a mocking reference to Fakenham’s half red, half white shirts), and “Your town is made up. Fakenham – your town is made up.”

Fakenham’s Jack Robinson soon quietened the Woodford fans. Just before the 30 minute mark, he raced through on goal (from a suspiciously offside looking position) to equalise. Robinson celebrated by looking at the Woodford fans and making a “sush” gesture to them. Woodford’s goalkeeper Callum McEvoy could have done better as Robinson did not hit his shot with great power or speed.

HALF-TIME SCORE: 1-1

“how much money do I have?”

I was very surprised at how direct the football was. It was rare for either team to play more than 3-4 passes before hitting a long ball. The ball also spent an unnecessary amount of time in the air. Just when I was despairing at the lack of goal mouth action, Jack Robinson produced a moment of real quality. He ran at Woodford’s defence from the left, before hitting a fierce left footed drive that went in off the post to put Fakenham 2-1 ahead.

Thereafter, Fakenham managed the game very well and ignored a noisy group of teenage Woodford town fans who hurled obscene four letter abuse and insults at Fakenham’s keeper Callum McEvoy throughout the second half. Their four letter expletives got so much that some Woodford fans moved away from them to give their ears a respite. They were making such a nuisance that they even had time to distract their own team’s ballboys, and walked through the perimeter barrier separating the spectator area from the playing surface. A Woodford official came over, and told them to get away from the playing surface. Bizarrely, one of them came over to me, showed me a handful of coins, repeatedly asked me “how much money do I have?”, told me “I don’t know how much money and I have” and insisted that I should count the value of the coins in his hand for him as he could not calculate for himself. I do wonder what they teach teenagers in school nowadays (or if he realised that his phone has a calculator app).

Back on the pitch, Fakenham managed the game well and looked to be heading through, but with only 8 minutes left, Woodford’s Alejandro Machado scored his second goal of the game to equalise from a corner by Dimitri Christou. With the final score 2-2, Fakenham won 4-3 on penalties to advance to the next round.

Team Line-Ups:

	WOODFORD TOWN	FAKENHAM TOWN
	Callum McEvoy	Tom Coombe
	Montel McKenzie	Ben Terry
	Kai Peters	Mitchell Rasberry
	Alejandro Machado	Daniel Hogston
	Lee Sharpe	Jayden Wright
	Guy Kiangbeni	Alex Walpole
	Ope Mosuro	Jack Robinson
	Normand Kebi (c)	Jack Guyton
	Luke Parrott	Ashley Jarvis
	Jaedon Phillips	Finn Whiteley
	Zee Lopes	Jake Watts
SUBSTITUTES
	Dimitri Christou	Josh Gauntlett
	Jake Haskins	Calum Dickinson
	Wale Odedoyin	Tam Demunga
	Nathan Kpemou	Finlay Page
	Bailey Brown	Tjay Kerr
	Andre Anderson	Jude Frostick
		Joshua Blower