On This Day: January 17th

Greensnet Editor
Sun 17 Jan 2021, 11:54

It wasn’t until 1982 that the Greens hosted a match on 17th January, the first seven fixtures on this day all took place at home. When football finally did ‘come home’ it didn’t actually visit Claremont Road for another 13 years.

In 1920 Hampstead Town were beaten 2-0 in an Athenian League match at Summerstown and five years later in the Amateur Cup a visit to Bostall Heath ended 3-1 to the hosts with Syd Sweetman’s goal nothing more than a consolation.

A 1931 visit to Gander Green Lane provided a first success back in the Athenian League as Sutton United were beaten 2-0 thanks to a couple of goals from Freddie Evans and in 1942 a Herts and Middlesex County League derby against Enfield finished 1-0 to Golders Green with ‘Mac’ Cochrane. 1948 saw the club visit Kingstonian in the Amateur Cup and goals from Bill Reay and Les Fontana saw an impressive 2-1 win.

That gave way to a 28-year hiatus on this day and it wasn’t until 1976 that Hendon returned to action with a visit to Clapton in the Isthmian League that was settled 1-0 by Bobby Childs’ goal, five years later and a visit to Hayes’ Church Road in the London Senior Cup ended with the hosts winning by the only goal.

Just a year later, in 1982, due to an extremely cold snap, Hendon were offered the use of QPR’s Loftus Road and their plastic pitch to host Taunton Town in an FA Trophy tie which has since gone down in folklore. With Tony Currie playing for the R’s at the time and his brother Paul prominent with the Greens a deal was done as part of an FA Trophy double header which saw Barnet play before Hendon. Goals from Peter Anderson, Pat Morrissey, Dermot Drummy, Bobby Gough and Martin Sperrin saw the Greens progress comfortably 5-1 against their Somerset opponents.

Moving ahead to 1995 and the Greens’ defence of the Full Members Cup came to an end as Boreham Wood came to Claremont Road winning 2-0 and three years later a visit to St Albans City saw strikes from Tony Kelly and Matt Howard secure a 2-1 win at Clarence Park in the Isthmian League.

In 2004 a visit to Park Lane to take on champions-elect, Canvey Island, ended in a 1-0 win for the hosts and a couple of years later Redbridge visited Claremont Road in the London Senior Cup and were hammered 7-0. John Frendo led the way with a four-timer, Dave Hunt came off the bench to score twice and Blaise O’Brien netted the other goal.

Canvey Island provided the opponents in 2009 in another ‘home’ game hosted nowhere near home. The closure of Claremont Road had necessitated the need to find other grounds upon which to host our home matches and this time we ended up at Wheatsheaf Lane, home of Staines Town. Harry Hunt and an own goal from Richard Halle gave the Greens a vital 2-1 win.

Finally in 2017 a Middlesex Senior Cup tie at Enfield Town ended 3-1 to the Greens with a hat-trick from Karl Oliyide making it 5 goals in 3 games for the pacey striker and impressing the home side so much that within a couple of weeks he had made the switch to the Towners.

14 matches on 17th January have to date seen 9 wins and 5 defeats, no draws so far. 26 goals have been scored and 14 conceded as well as three different venues used for home matches.