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The second full
season of the new Kingston-On-Thames Association Football Club was another
quiet affair. Any plans to put Kingston Association Football on the map,
even locally, were still to be fulfilled and reporting on games in the
local papers was often an afterthought rather than the main sports billing
of the week.
Results were little changed from the previous season and, with the exception
of Fagan, Short and Gaines, no further regulars were added to the team.
Jimmy Fagan had played a small number of games the year before and, although
something of a utility player, was mostly a replacement for Humphreys
in the attack. Gaines replaced Howard, and Harry Short filled in where
necessary, but Kingston remained without a Centre Forward and goalscorer.
The team were also without the services of Fred Lanham in goal for the
first half of the season. Drysdale took his place but after Christmas
Lanham made a return, although there were at least a couple of games where
Kingston had to fill the position with an outfield player. It was an unsettled
line up with 3 or 4 places constantly changing from week to week and reliant
on the familiar names of Ocock, Kemp, Lloyd and Peck to hold things together
as well as Jack Craig, who had played the latter part of the previous
season, and was to become captain of the team.
Friendlies were still the main order of the day, although the club entered
the Surrey Senior Cup for the first time and also entered the Reserves
into the Surrey Junior Cup which the First Team had played in the year
before. At a General meeting at the start of the season it was commented
that the club did not expect to win the Surrey Senior Cup at their first
time of trying and this proved accurate as they were beaten
12-0 by Weybridge on the Fairfield in the First Round. Jack Craig
had missed the meeting where it was agreed to enter the Senior Cup and,
at a General Meeting
in advance of this fixture, he had suggested that given the poor result
in the Junior Cup the previous year they should withdraw their entry to
the Senior competition. His motion to withdraw might have saved a few
blushes but was narrowly defeated by 8 votes to 7.
It was not all negative though and a crowd of 1,000 was reported by one
newspaper to show that there was a large potential support for the club
in the town. It was also very bad luck to be drawn with Weybridge who
were to go on and lift the cup that season. Unfortunately Kingston were
unable to capitalise on the interest in this match as the Fairfield was
a public ground so no entry fee could be charged. Club funding was still
made up mostly from player and member subscriptions.
Another advantage of entering the First Team in the Senior competition
was that it left an opening for the Reserves to play in a competitive
match for the first time. They did a little better than the First Team
and only lost 2-0 in their Junior Cup First Round match against Surbiton
Hill Reserves in another well attended game on the Fairfield. The game
had been switched from Surbiton at Surbiton Hill's request due to their
First Team being at home. Some of the attendees were less than welcome
however and there were complaints about the sportsmanship of the Kingston
followers with reports of jeering towards the Surbiton Hill players and
a group of youngsters who spent their time "worrying"
the Surbiton Hill goalkeeper. It had been another unlucky opening
draw as Surbiton Hill Reserves were to reach the final that season.
There were other bad defeats in the first half of the season with a 6-0
defeat at Leatherhead and an 11-0 defeat at Ewell but overall results
were similar to the previous season and, after the defeat by Ewell in
early December, they only lost 3 more games that season. Impressive results
included a 2-1 win against a team known as Electric Avenue consisting
of players from the Central Telegraph Office as well as a 5-0 win against
Ashley St. Andrews. Both of these teams were considered to be of a high
standard at the time.
The club was struggling with away fixtures both in results and attendance.
The only away success that season was a 1-0 win against Redhill in an
experimental midweek fixture in December. The win was only accomplished
with a forward line of 5 substitutes after arriving short and it was one
of those substitutes that scored the only goal. A return fixture at Kingston
scheduled for January did not happen, probably due to bad weather. There
was an issue developing with players apparently not keen on travelling
to away matches and almost always Kingston were missing some of their
regular players for these games. It was also reported that the Secretary
and Centre-Half, P.G. Lloyd, was paying
the fares of players who couldn't afford the trips to away games and
at the Annual General Meeting it was suggested that a fund be set up for
this purpose. Only 5 games were played away all season compared to the
15 at home with one other being at the Kingston Rugby ground for the annual
Charity Festival.
The most noteworthy friendly of the season was against Wimbledon (unrelated
to the modern Wimbledon club who were playing under the name of Old Centrals
at the time). Having lost 2-1 at Wimbledon earlier in the season, Kingston
started the New Year with a 3-0 home win on 5th January. It could have
been more because at 3-0 Kingston were awarded a penalty. However the
Wimbledon men, who the referee described as "splendid
exponents of the art of wrangling", walked off the pitch leaving
the referee to report them to the F.A. It was decided Kingston would not
take a penalty against an unoccupied goal depriving them of a 4th goal.
A month was lost in February due to bad weather but Kingston were able
to manage 5 more games, including a 7-0
win against Scottish Fossils to conclude their official season. This
left one more game to be played after again being invited to compete in
the Kingston Charity Festival on the Rugby ground in Richmond Road. This
was re-arranged at short notice to an Easter date beyond the date their
official season ended. Kingston
were unhappy about this move and as a result were missing several
of their regulars and were
beaten 3-0 by Balham Athletic who were the Surrey Junior Cup holders.
The Reserves unusually managed to complete a full fixture card although
there were still problems with attendance and an even worse situation
for away games than the First Team had had. In one away game where they
turned up short it was noted that players selected were seen at the Fairfield
on the same day. They won as many games as they lost and for possibly
the first time in the club's history they seemed to have a just about
functioning reserve side.
The Annual General Meeting in April
reported reasonable finances and a reasonable set of results with a decent
card of fixtures already arranged for the following season as well as
the recruitment of two "first class players". However it was
a poorly attended meeting with just 10 people present and apathy was also
apparent from the fact that 10 of the 26 players had not paid their subscriptions
for the season.
Although satisfactory, the club had been treading water since their change
of name and it had not yet become a focal point for Association Football
in the Kingston area.
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