Matchdays

Free Entry Fixture

In a bid to reach out to more people in the Guildford area and hopefully persuade some first time visitors to come back again, the club are pleased to announce that all supporters attending the Guildford City v North Greenford United fixture at Spectrum on Saturday 6 March will gain entry for free.

Slyfield Campaign Brochure
Screenshots of the campaign brochure are now available on the Guildford City FC website. Click here.

Guildford Golf Club

Guildford City FC and Guildford Golf Club have announced an affiliate partnership which will hopefully be of benefit to both clubs. GCFC members will receive preferential green fee rates as well as any membership fee waived.
Membership of Guildford City Football Club is £15 pa. Membership also includes access to the City Club.

New Away Strip (February 2010)

February 27th 2010 sees the launch of our new away strip with new shirt sponsors CopperOak Property Services.

Slyfield Regeneration Project

Guildford City Football Club and the Slyfield Regeneration Scheme. Click below to view the news as broken by the Surrey Advertiser on Friday 12 February 2010.
Surrey Advertiser website.

The Guildford City FC campaign website can be found at slyfield.guildfordcityfc.co.uk

The Big Freeze

Guildford has been hit by snow, ice and rain since mid December meaning several games, mostly at Spectrum, have been cancelled.
As of January 11th  the fixtures page is up to date with re-arranged dates.

Pictured left, Spectrum iced over on Saturday 2nd January.

Many thanks to everyone, both players and supporters, who turned out on 30th January for a highly successful and entertaining race night at the City Club.

We hope to run more of these events in the future - watch this space.

Monthly Review

Guildford City had a 100% record in December - although due to adverse weather conditions we only played three matches!

First up were Banstead Ahtletic, struggling at the foot of the table. A Carnegie goal, courtesy of a neat Bridgeman flick, gave City a first half lead - and Danny Elgar curled a fantastic shot into the net late on to give City three points in a 2-0 win.

Sussex League side Redhill visited the Spectrum in the second round of the Surrey Senior Cup. A poor pitch, plus two good defences meant chances were few and far between - and the match remained goalless for 120 minutes! The closest City came was through a SImon Cooper freekick right at the end of full time. The game went to penalties, and City scored all five of theirs through Penson, Cooper, Brown, King and Carnegie. Anthony Hall in goal saved the final Redhill penalty, setting up a tie with Sutton United in the next round.

An end to end match turned out to be our last action of 2009, with City running out 2-0 victors over Sandhurst Town. Simon Cooper poked us into an early lead, and the defence was at its best to keep the hosts at bay. Indeed, we have now gone over 400 minutes without conceding a goal in open play - our best defensive run in many years! Harrison Carnegie chipped the keeper in the second half to confirm the result.

Games against Camberley, Raynes Park Vale, and the clash with local rivals Ash United fell victim to the cold weather and snow that fell across the borough in the middle of December.

Let's hope 2010 provides as much excitement as this season has already!

Monthly Review

A mixed month for the City, with three wins and three losses, including progress into the quarter-finals of the League Cup.

Harrison Carnegie returned from a spell on the bench to score six goals in five starts, starting with one in a 3-2 victory over Wembley at the Spectrum. The visitors had lost eight in a row, and City punished their poor defence with some excellent goals - all of them headers. Sean Rivers, City's top scoring player this season, marked his last game for the club by opening the scoring. Carnegie added the second before Jamie King rounded off the scoring.

A trip to second-in-the-table North Greenford Utd proved fruitless for City. Despite a fairly even match, poor finishing (or rather, an excellent North Greenford defence) and some calamitous defensive errors meant they were beaten 5-1. On paper, a thrashing, but a flattering scoreline for the hosts.

And it was the same opponents who made their way to Guildford for the third round of the League Cup. Both teams made a few changes, City bringing in Tom Penson and new signing Dan Moody. It was Guildford City who produced the goods, running out 5-0 victors - what a change from the previous game! Harrison Carnegie bagged a hat-trick, with King and Moody adding the others.

The goals kept flowing for the next game, at home to second-bottom Bookham, with Harrison finding the net twice in a 4-1 win. Ben Rayner poked home on the half hour mark to open the scoring. New signing James Brown was feeling good, scoring on his debut.

Next up was Molesey in the Southern Combination Cup. A mix of complacency, tiredness - and perhaps a lack of motivation - contrived towards a 3-2 loss. Dan Moody put City 1-0 ahead in the second minute, and for half an hour the pace of the Guildford front line destroyed a sluggish Molesey defence. James McShane had other ideas, scoring with an exquisite shot from outside the area. It all went downhill from then on, and City only pulled it back to 3-2 in the final minute.

A trip to Cove was hampered by bad pitch conditions, City falling foul of a muddy goalmouth. Jack McLeod, a new signing who was professional at Hereford last season, saw his shot, amongst others, stop in the mud on its way to the net. Ultimately, two penalties meant Guildford ended up on the wrong end of the scoreline - but yet again, could and perhaps should have got at least a point.

Monthly Review

After the disappointment of the FA Cup and Vase exits in September - Guildford City were hoping to pick some good results up in October.

A poor performance at home to Chessington and Hook didn't start the month off well however. City lost 2-0, barely registering a meaningful attack on goal.

In midweek Chessington visited the Spectrum again - this time for the Premier Cup 1st Round match. This was unbearably dull and was played in miserable conditions - heavy rain had been falling all day. A subdued game ensued, and it was only in the 110th minute (yes, that's 10 minutes into extra time) the only goal came. Sean Rivers scored a penalty to send City into the next round.

The City and their fans 'The Sweeney' made their way to Egham for a league match the following Saturday. Within ten minutes Guildford were 2-0 down, a horror show of defending had let an attacking Egham team score twice. After that the play was more balanced, and City eventually found a way back in to the match through another Sean Rivers penalty. Lance Banton-Brown pulled the match level to 2-2 after excellent work from Danny Elgar on the left wing. Egham changed formation and got a winner in the last few minutes (sound familiar anyone?) - breaking away from a City attack - 3-2.

City made amends a week later with a 3-1 victory over Banstead Athletic. Danny Elgar and Sean Rivers - probably the two best players of the month - both scored from Adesina assists in a dominant display. Rivers then netted yet another penalty (his sixth in eight matches), before a lack of concentration allowed Banstead to pull one back. Perhaps City could have scored more and kept a clean sheet, but three points were all that mattered.

Knaphill provided a scare in the first round of the Southern Combination Cup - going 1-0 up before the stamina and strength of the Guildford side eventually showed. Goals from Sean Rivers (this time from open play!) and Banton-Brown secured progress after a dominant period of extra time.

A trip to Croydon was not a good experience. A fairy uneventful match was settled after a defensive mishap between keeper Anthony Hall and Elvis de Freitas. Croydon went into the break 1-0 up, and had to play the whole of the second half with a centre back in goal due to injury to their regular keeper. City couldn't find a way to take advantage and the match stayed as it was.

The team then turned on the style away at Warlingham - winning 5-1 in the Premier Cup. Just 1-0 up at half time courtesy of Sean Rivers, City were all over their opponents and scored four more in the second half - thanks to some excellent play but some frail defending. A superb free kick pulled a consolation goal back for Warlingham in the last minutes.

The visit of Horley was frustrating. Horley Town had started the season well, but came into the match in bad form. City looked dangerous throughout, but couldn't quite find the goals. A 1-1 draw was a fairly decent result, the City goal coming from a beautifully struck shot by Harrison Carnegie.

University of Surrey Freshers Fayre 2009

It was an 'early' start for us, having stayed up until 3am the previous evening 'planning' (drinking) and making the finishing touches to this weekends match programme.

Having got hold of 500 branded pens courtesy of Eddie, 1500 leaflets courtesy of Matt B and having half-inched the Guildford City sign from the Spectrum - we set our stall out the next morning. We were enjoying some banter with the 'Action for Children' next door, for which we eventually gained two blue rubber ducks as souvenirs!

There were some tannoy issues, so the atmos...oh wait, no, that's Saturday...

Having thrown a flag over the stall and made the leaflets look nice, we went off for a quick couple of matches of pool. We went back to the fayre and had a look around, finding the Surrey FA stall and the Guildford Spectrum stall - so we swapped some propaganda with them.

The fayre started slowly, with only a handful of people coming to the stall, but we soon realised that if we stood behind, rather than infront, of our GCFC banner then people would be able to read it! A fairly steady trickle of interested people started to arrive at the stall, with Joe and Matt B leafletting round the fayre itself.

We were having trouble distinguishing ourselves from the University football team, and had to explain to people that they weren't signing up to play for us! How many enquiries Kev is going to get about new players I dread to think... sorry!

Between 1 and 2.30pm, the fayre was pretty manic. We spoke to a lot of people, and a lot of the leaflets went - so hopefully we'll get a good turn out on Saturday - with some guys seeming very interested in what we do.

Having totally given up the pretense of being a 'Football Appreciation Society' (we did try!), we asked people to sign up to the Guildford City mailing list in return for a free pen, getting around 90 new names. How many of these will stay on the list remains to be seen - but if just a small number of them turn up it would be a bonus!

As the afternoon went on, the fayre calmed down a bit and we did the rounds to give leaflets to anyone who even vaguely looked like they were into football. I then went on a political rampage, moaning at the poor political societies that their idols don't do enough to help us. Although I must say that the liberals have the best looking girls! (And I don't mean Sue Doughty before you say anything...!)

We gave out around about 500 leaflets in total, so the plan is to distribute the rest around campus bars and accommodation in the next few days/weeks.

As we left, the Autism charity next to us donated a box of sweets our way - and we picked up some more 'free pizza' and 'cheap beer' discount vouchers. We later used one of these in Wethersthingys, and noticed we had saved a whole SIX PENCE off the price of a pint of Ruddles. Our student discount offer is nothing if not good value, working out at a saving of £18. Beat that Domino's pizza!

Were we successful? Only time will tell I suppose...

GCFC: M. Brown (sub: J. Pattison 3:40pm), M.Howell (sub: M. Brown 2:15pm), J. Pattison (sub: M. Howell 1:10pm)
There were few other substitutions but they weren't holding up the boards!

Sent off: T. Tydeman