Corinthian-Casuals v AFC Dunstable

KING GEORGE'S ARENA

FA TROPHY PRELIMINARY ROUND

OCTOBER 7, 2017

GROUND NO 198

IF an alien parked his spaceship next to the A3 in Tolworth and popped into King George's Arena, he'd be forgiven for thinking the home team were just another non-league team playing in front of far fewer people than they really deserve to. Albeit in a rather unusual pink and brown kit.

But Corinthian-Casuals have a proud history.

The club we know today, plying its trade in the Bostik League, is the merger of Corinthian FC and Casuals FC in 1939.

Prior to that Corinthan and Casuals were two of the powerhouses of the amateur game in the days when the bloke who sold you your state-of-the-art Bakelite-framed wireless earned more than the Wayne Rooney of his time so carried on doing his day job despite being the greatest inside left of his generation.

In fact Corinthian are responsible for Manchester United's biggest ever defeat (an 11-3 tonking in 1904); they are the only club to have provided an entire England side (against Wales in 1894 and again 1895); they provided the inspiration for clubs and players all over the world through their legendary overseas football missionary work (their visit to Brazil in 1910 led to the formation of Corinthians, one of the football-daft nation's biggest clubs); they fielded the man believed to be the world's first black player (Andrew Watson); and Charles Wreford-Brown, who played in both those games against the Welsh, is said to be man who first coined the word 'soccer' (a fellow Oxford University student is reputed to have asked him if he fancied a game of rugger - sensing the need to find a short form for association football in the way his pal had done for rugby football, he replied that he'd sooner play soccer).

So if you want history, this is a club that has it in bucketloads. And they remain strictly amateur to this day.

It's all a bit more humdrum these days though. The club retains links with its South American brothers but while the Brazilians pack them in at the 49,000-capacity Arena Corinthians, the originals are based at the modest King George's Arena where the 2,500 limit is never tested.

After exiting the art deco Tolworth railway station, stumbling across a football ground seems as likely as finding an amateur club showing its waged rivals how it's done so far up the pyramid. Yet both can quickly be found.

After strolling between a seemingly endless row of suburban houses and the busy A3 dual carriageway, an opening suddenly appears and, after passing under the railway bridge, you're at your destination.

After passing through the turnstiles you're faced with the sizable clubhouse building (plenty of room inside, a big TV screen showing Sky Sports and a decent pint of Wolf Rock red IPA), with the pitch on the left.

The main stand, a small low affair which runs a good way down that side of the ground, houses terracing at the end closest to the entrance and seats acquired variously from Wimbledon's old Plough Lane ground, Dulwich Hamlet's Champion Hill mark one and Havant and Waterlooville's Westleigh Park.

The entrance at the back of this stand, near the tea bar and clubhouse entrance is flanked by two small bushes. With a pink panel either side and a brass plaque (telling us the stand is named after CCFC stalwart Tiny Liddle), it looks like the entrance to a West End private members' club. I kept looking around for tuxedo-clad doorman.

Go past that and you'll find a TV gantry (today's game was being filmed on a mobile phone rather than a camera) and then a portable building that comprises the committee room.

At either end of the ground are simple covered areas - shallow terracing underneath corrugated iron and scaffold pole structures - while flags flutter from the flagpoles behind the hard standing on the far side. One, inevitably, features the crest of Corinthians and another that of Real Madrid, who were inspired to wear an all-white strip by Corinthian who did likewise in their early days.

King George's Arena has only been home to the club since 1988 - Corinthian and Casuals played here, there and everywhere before and after the merger - when they took over Tolworth FC's ground. There was an athletics track around the pitch at the time but you'd never know it now.

The name, the flags and the plethora of banners around the ground ensure this club's rich history is not forgotten, but you have to say it's unlikely that anything to match it will be achieved here.