Today I'm going back just three years to the FA Vase Final of 2019 between Chertsey Town and Cray Valley Paper Mills at Wembley. The game was part of a Wembley double header of Non-League Finals and preceded the FA Trophy Final between AFC Fylde and Leyton Orient which was held later the same afternoon. One ticket secured access to both matches and the programme is interesting in that the cover is, in effect, the front cover for both matches with the FA Trophy part of the issue being on the flipside of the FA Vase programme shown.
The official attendance figure for Non-League Finals day is more than a little misleading given that there are four sets of fans inside the stadium across the course of the day. What happens however is that the majority of attendees for the second game don't turn up until perhaps an hour before their game and therefore miss the first game whilst the fans of the clubs attending the first game tend to push off before the second game starts! Anyway the official attendance on the day was declared as being 42,962 for what that's worth but you can see by watching the video (attached to my blog) that there was nothing like that inside the stadium for the FA Vase Final.
I suspect that many readers of this article won't have a clue as to the location of the two clubs involved. Chertsey Town, nicknamed the Curfews, are to be found in Surrey, not too far from Woking. Their nickname refers to the bell that hangs in Chertsey's St Peter's Church and has rung out the evening curfew (now only ceremonial) for over 500 years. In 2018, Chertsey Town appointed the former AFC Wimbledon manager and Non-League radio celebrity Dave Anderson as their boss. It was an inspired choice and the club went on to win the Combined Counties ("CoCo") League Premier Division with six games to spare. Even more notably however, Chertsey, starting in the 1st Qualifying Round of the FA Vase, navigated their way through all ten (!) rounds of the competition to win the Final. Anderson retired following the Final, I think reasoning that he couldn't top their double-winning season as the club were promoted to the Isthmian League South Central Division.
Cray Valley Paper Mills (the Millers), founded in 1919, are located in the London suburb of Eltham, part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and nominally in Kent. The club originally played at the sports ground of the Paper Mills in St Paul's Cray but those mills finally closed for business in 1981. I wouldn't be surprised if the "Paper Mills" suffix to their name disappears in the next few years and you already tend to see them being referred to as "Cray Valley (PM)". In season 2018/19, like Chertsey, Cray Valley also won their League, in this case the Southern Counties East League Premier Division and were promoted to the Isthmian League South East Division.
In the Cray Valley side that day was Kevin Lisbie, a player who made his name at Charlton Athletic, Ipswich Town and Leyton Orient and was a Jamaican international (10 caps, 2 goals). In a long career (1996 to 2022), Lisbie racked up 565 club appearances scoring 171 goals. Chertsey had some footballing royalty of their own in Lubomir Guentchev, son of Bulgarian World Cup star Boncho.
It was Cray Valley who took the lead through number 9 Gavin Tomlin after 36 minutes. Boy did he look angry when he scored! Sadly for Cray however they weren't in front for long with the Chertsey equaliser coming just three minutes later, scored by Sam Flegg who reacted first to a ball that came back off the post. There was to be no further scoring during normal time and we settled down for an additional half an hour of Extra Time. Just before half time of the extra period, Chertsey took the lead via a penalty by Jake Baxter. Then, with the clock running down, Chertsey sealed their win with a third goal in the 117th minute from centre-back Quincy Rowe (come on, how many Quincy's do you know?), another player with an angry looking celebration (I'm sure he must have been beaming inwardly!). Chertsey had won the FA Vase and we all went for a drink and to wait for the FA Trophy Final to commence.
CRB Match No. 2312
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