What football club would YOU choose?

Here's a fictional scenario. You have just moved to a new area and you are a football lover. You are suddenly 'a stranger in these parts' and, after researching how the land lies around your new home, you find that you have three different football clubs to choose from in the immediate vicinity. They are all within easy travelling distance of your new home if you drive to them.

Let us assume that your adopted town or village is near somewhere like a fictitious place called Sidcup. Now let us assume that each of the three imaginary clubs that are almost on your doorstep are called Cray Valley Paper Mills, Chislehurst Glebe and Cray Wanderers. Let us further assume that, you do not like the idea of driving your car to football matches because (a) you don't like the idea of the paintwork getting 'door-banged' in the car park and (b) you like a bit of a tipple in the bar after the game, win or lose.

You continue with your research and find that (a) the oldest of the three make-believe clubs is Cray Wanderers, (b) the highest level of football played by the clubs is by Cray Valley PM and Cray Wanderers and, the lowest level of football played (at the time of writing this article) is by Chislehurst Glebe and (c) out of the three clubs, only one owns its ground outright - that being Cray Wanderers and the least likely ever to move again should a lease run out and not be renewed. 

Then you find out that Chislehurst Glebe and Cray Valley PM have regular bus services almost to their club gates, the number 162 to a made-up name like Foxbury Lane (for Glebe) and buses 314 and B13 to a mythical ground name like Badgers (for Cray Valley PM), whereas Cray Wanderers have a shiny new stadium but the only ways to get there are either to drive there and leave your car in the car park (which you don't want to do), catch a bus and have to risk life and limb trying to cross the eternally busy but fictitious Sidcup bypass, walk about a mile and a half from your Sidcup home or ride a train to the nearest railway station and walk for about 2.5 miles to the ground.

You are in a bit of a quandary because you believe that, of the three clubs in this make-believe world, Cray Wanderers FC is the only club with an ambition to rise higher in the football pyramid than the other two clubs and its flamboyantly-named Flamingo Park has the facilities and the strength of eventual stadium expansion to achieve that aim. And the stadium is owned outright by the club and not leased from a third-party landlord.

A little birdie that lives locally to Flamingo Park did tell you that an online petition is running to collect electronic signatures from contributors and interested parties, whether they are supporters of Cray Wanderers or not, for the purpose of requesting the authorities to make a slight alteration to bus routes in the vicinity which will allow them to make a small detour to nearer the Flamingo Park ground. So, after visiting the online petition you add and confirm your details.

But, do you (a) sit it out until a bus route or even a pedestrianised crossing or bridge across the A20 near the ground is or are approved and installed, (b) use your car in the interim period and hope that nobody clumsily dings your car in the Flamingo Park car park while opening their door, (c) walk 1.5 miles from Sidcup, (d) catch the train to New Eltham railway station and take a leisurely two-and-a-half mile stroll to Flamingo Park (and the same trip back again, predominantly in the dark during the winter months) or (e) decide to become a supporter of one of the other two clubs due to the ease of getting a bus from the end of your street direct to the gates of their ground?

If Cray Wanderers can persuade the Transport for London bosses to agree to and implement the request to provide more reasonable public transport links for Flamingo Park, just think of the big difference it would make not only to football fans new to the area in deciding to join our club but, also to those would-be Wands supporters, potential community centre users and others who are reliant on public transport and who currently face limitations on getting to the ground safely. 

If you haven't already done so, please take a few moments to visit the online petition and provide your details. The online petition is real. The scenario is real. You don't even need to be a Cray Wanderers supporter or a resident of the area to take part but, your kind gesture will most certainly help this cause.

Trevor Mulligan