On The Road With Romford – Part Two – AFC Sudbury

Supporting a football team is not all about winning trophies. Sure, that’s what all clubs, and all of their fans, want, but realistically only a handful of teams are every likely to win the Premier League or the FA Cup. In fact, at all levels, there are only a few teams that will realistically challenge for silverware. The rest may dream, but for their fans, it isn’t always about winning pots, it’s about the memories.

Going to football is not just about the ninety minutes in my view. I would hate to just go to a game, watch it alone and go home again. Football is for me, as much about meeting friends, and sometimes the trip, if it’s an away game.

As a diversion from current events, I thought that I would take a trip down memory lane, and revisit some of the away games that I have experienced watching Romford. In this second part, it’s off to Suffolk.

The merger of Sudbury Town and Sudbury Wanderers in 1999 resulted in the creation of AFC Sudbury. Unlike many clubs with the prefix AFC, Sudbury’s stands for more than the normal Association Football Club; it actually stands for Amalgamated Football Club. 

Romford’s Reserves had played Sudbury Town during the 1960s, but neither Romford’s first-team nor reserves ever played Sudbury Wanderers, and before the game that features here, Boro had met AFC Sudbury just twice.

When Romford travelled to Sudbury on 4^th September 2010 for the first league meeting between the clubs, Sudbury would have felt themselves favourites. The two previous meetings between the sides had both gone their way. In 2005, Boro had travelled to Sudbury in the FA Vase at a time when the home side were something of experts in the competition, having reached the final in each of the previous three seasons, although they had been beaten on all of those occasions. On the day, Sudbury proved too strong for Romford – then an Essex Senior League side - and ran out 4-0 winners.

The sides next met in the FA Trophy four years later in a game played at Romford’s then home at Aveley FC. By now, Romford had been promoted from the Essex Senior League to the Isthmian League, and AFC Sudbury had gone up from the Eastern Counties League to the Southern League. But while Romford were in the Isthmian League’s second tier, AFC Sudbury were in the Southern League’s top division and they proved to be too strong for Boro. Having taken a 2-0 lead inside the first five minutes, AFC Sudbury led 4-0 at the break and eventually went home 7-0 winners.

By 2010, restructuring in non-League football had seen AFC Sudbury moved to Romford’s division of the Isthmian League, but while Sudbury were considered to be among the favourites for promotion, Romford’s ambitions were a little more prosaic. Being one of the few – if not only – sides in the division not to have any sort of playing budget, Romford would consider merely staying in the division as success of sorts. This would hold true for all of the ten years that Paul Martin managed Romford in the Isthmian League. Glenn Tamplin’s involvement with the club from November 2019 changed that, of course with the club finally having the opportunity to pay players.

Arriving at Sudbury in September 2010, the first thing that Romford supporters noticed was that the old clubhouse and changing rooms had been replaced with a brand new and very impressive facility (as shown in a page from Sudbury’s programme that is reproduced here). Those of us who bought a programme would have noticed the comments by the editor when referring to the previous meetings between the sides, specifically that “you would fancy us to score some goals today.” That is the sort of comment that can come back to bite you, and can do the opposition manager’s team talk for them. Even if the Romford players were unaware of it, the ethos that manager Paul Martin always instilled in his sides was that they had nothing to fear, even against supposedly better sides, and so it proved.

Some pages from AFC Sudbury's programme, including the comment from the editor that came back to bite!

On a sunny and very pleasant late summer afternoon, AFC Sudbury had decent early chances with goalkeeper Adam Rafis having to make a good save from Sudbury’s Russell Malton, who then fired over the bar, but it was Romford who drew first blood when Richard Oxby’s low free-kick found the net in the 16^th minute with the Sudbury keeper apparently unsighted.

It was 1-0 to Romford at the break, but 2-0 after 49 minutes as Toran Senghore took advantage of some dithering in the home defence to intercept a back pass and slot the ball home. Stung by this, Sudbury responded, hitting the woodwork, while Kevin Neville cleared one off the line, Rafis made vital saves and James Ishmail made an important tackle to deny them a goal.

Having drawn Sudbury’s sting, Romford scored twice in three minutes. First, after 77 minutes, Andy Edmunds hit the sweetest volley you could imagine after a Sudbury defender had half-cleared Duane Miller’s cross, and then after 80 minutes Miller and Senghore combined to set up Edmunds for his second to make it 4-0

Andy Edmunds volleys Romford's third goal.

The fans cheered Boro off the pitch and the players applauded the fans; it was one of those afternoons that all football fans will know and savour when it’s experienced, going away from home to play a fancied side and getting a stunning, and unexpected result. And in subsequent seasons, Romford have had some similarly outstanding results away from home, including three more wins at Sudbury, with two 3-1 victories and one by the more remarkable score line of 6-3. If there’s one thing that is normally guaranteed when Romford and AFC Sudbury meet, it’s goals; in twenty-one games in all competitions between the sides there have been 86 (an average of just over 4 per game), and on only eight occasions have one side or another failed to score.

Romford's players leave the field to a rapturous reception.

Aside from this memorable trip, five years later in 2015 I made it to Romford’s game at Sudbury in unusual circumstances. Every July or August, we have a family holiday at Center Parcs in Elveden, but in 2015 when we had booked it, the opening day of the football season had not been fixed. When it was, it coincided with our trip to Center Parcs. As my very good luck had it, Romford’s opening fixture was at Sudbury, which just happens to be a mere 30 miles from Eleveden! Boro’s 5-2 defeat that day wasn’t the result I’d hoped for, but at least I got to the game!

How the Romford Recorder reported Boro's win

Win, lose, or draw I’ve always enjoyed trips to Sudbury, it’s a pleasant ground, the people there are nice, the welcome is always warm, and the two clubs have a good relationship. One day very soon, I hope to see Romford play there again.