Back To Clapton: The return of Clapton CFC's men to the Old Spotted Dog ground.

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Sam Wainwright

Supporting images: Tom Reed

What happens if a football club doesn’t rely on cheap siege mentalities to gain an edge and just tries to make things comfortable for those fans that go up the match?

Clapton Community Football Club in East London is known for its politics but mainly wants to make people feel welcomed and worry free.

There’s a discretely placed board in the club house with some thoughts on accountability and being “collectively responsible for supporting those around us”.

Life’s grim enough in these isles where the sun is either hiding behind Angel Delight skies or a UV affront, to worry about what you look like or how you identify.

90 minutes as an escape and if you need a hand you’ll get it.

©Sam Wainwright/ Terrace Edition. Clapton Community FC.

Once you get your head round that starting point, you’ll have a damn good time at Clapton.

The men’s team hadn’t played a competitive fixture at the Old Spotted Dog Ground for 1456 days due to improvements required to facilities, which produced a heartwarming community effort to bring things up to scratch at the venue a mile away from West Ham’s beloved old gaff.

£15,000 was raised in an emergency appeal to get the changing rooms done ahead of an FA ground grading but cash needs to be sorted for the floodlights and fences and all the other areas that need looking at as you climb another rung on the non-league ladder.

All this allows the real good stuff of kids being able to play on the pitch before the match and for the working and non-working poor to actually go to a game in London.

Football is one of the worst for not giving a shit about Britain’s quiet poverty, but there’s none of that at Clapton where entry through the turnstiles is done on a pay as much as you can afford basis.

There’s a fella in the clubhouse, where soul music is being spun on vinyl, that plays £1000 a month to live on a boat and that is actually cheap accommodation for this area of London. Once a bit of a haven from Britain’s land value obsession, even canal boats are being turned into houses of multiple occupancy and life on the water being rinsed clean.

No wonder you see a sticker having a pop at landlords, let’s look a little deeper shall we?

There’s a little dog at the outside bar where they are selling cans of Red Stripe and Pretty Decent craft beer on tap and the dog’s got this tennis ball he’s playing with.

The dog chases the ball and after picking it up, immediately drops it so he can chase it again, except i’m the only one playing with with this pooch and the ball rolls down the path and by the time I get it, I’ve lost my place in the queue.

Life feels like that in England, constantly rolling away and that’s why we need clubs like Clapton, that are within reach.

The dog’s a fucking happy dog by the the way, as are a lot of people at Clapton. Quite a few will say hi to you as they walk by, which elicits a cynical response of ‘why are these people being so kind?’. ‘Are they trying to dig me out?’ But mainly it seems like they are just sound and pleased to see new people.

There’s an ultra who’s wearing a balaclava, which is great for the April chill but less so when the sun shows its head and the itch begins. Good lad he is, probably a bit nice for the aura of the ultra but isn’t that the same of most when you peel back the curtain?

Have a chat with the steward in the pink hi-viz with the Adidas Micropacers, scanning for non-existent trouble but mainly looking fly.

The gate is a very solid 902 which might provide a problem for Clapton’s community-owned ethos in the future, being blatantly the next club to blow up like Dulwich Hamlet in the South.

So called “investors” circle where success is seen.

Gates will double no doubt, because why would you go and watch football anywhere else in East London? Bar Orient maybe because the Old Spotted Dog shows the Hammers’ Olympic Stadium up for the vanilla venue it is.

There’s a Dickensian vibe as you approach the abandoned Old Spotted Dog Inn and a Northern fella on the door calls the alleyway down the side a “ginnel", like they do on Coronation Street but this is Eastenders territory.

Houses dot the perimeter, all the stands are mis-matched and comfortingly ramshackle and the pitch seems vast and green.

A drum beats early and it beats loud.

You’ll hear a few different accents, a French guy from Red Star Paris, a Hull City exile, a Brazilian with a London twang but a few tell-tale “sh” sounds.

There’s no initiation to becoming a Clapton fan, just come down and you’re in. No-one’s illegal and no-one has anything to prove.

Walter Tull had an officer class vocal delivery, a Clapton legend who was one of England’s first black professional footballers and also the first black man to be commissioned in the British Army. Tull turned out for Clapton in 1908 but was dead 10 years later in the Pas-De-Calais, cut down cruelly in the last months of World War I.

No wonder that Clapton takes time to consider its history.

The Ton are on for promotion from the Middlesex County League Premier Division and the opponents are Kensington Dragons in the dark blue. The away side are warmed up by a Scottish geezer with granite calves who gets them to run backwards in the warm up, raising their legs behind them in a testing manoeuvre that ballet dancers would baulk at.

Kensington’s manager is in his 60’s but looks in his 40’s, is wearing Adidas World Cup when his players sport paper-thin Nike Air Zoom Mercurial and this guy has had decades in the London game.

His team are pretty good but lacking the match-winners of Clapton and maybe that stamina to keep pushing to the 90.

Clapton’s standout player is easily James Briggs who looks to be carrying a bit of condition but plays the game at his own pace and dominates the opposition.

Football is better with players that look like us but are just better at football and Briggsy scored an absolute worldie vs Hounslow where he clattered the wall with a free-kick and then volleyed the rebound first time into top bins.

Briggs scores Clapton’s third on a day the hosts are just too good for the away team. He despatches a penalty sweetly with his right to seal the win that the homecoming to the Old Spotted dog deserved.

At the end, with the league title all but secured there was the traditional call and response between players and fans to the tune of Roger Ramjet or Yankee Doodle Dandy, the kids were back in the goalmouth and the dog strained for his tennis ball.

Someone kick the ball for the dog in my absence please, it’s playing on my mind.

Accountability for dog toys n’all.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Clapton Community FC.

You can find Tom on Twitter: @tomreedwriting

Sam is on Twitter: @SamWainwrightUK and Instagram: @Wainwrightsam

This is a rather pleasing goal!!

James Briggs for Clapton CFC in their 3-2 win at CB Hounslow.pic.twitter.com/vWpv4bGVyf
— Ollie Bayliss (@Ollie_Bayliss) February 12, 2023

Big match den

Don't call it a derby

Forward the friendship

Rolling Stones

Orient: Come a l0ng l0ng way baby