VS AFC WHYTELEAFE
ISTHMIAN LEAGUE | SOUTH EAST DIVISION TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2026 | KICK OFF 7.30PM
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN FC
The Vistavis Community Stadium College Lane | East Grinstead | RH19 3LS
Tel: 01342 325885
THERE WERE SOME POSITIVES!
Good evening everyone, and a warm welcome to the players, officials and supporters with us from AFC Whyteleafe tonight. It seems like a hundred years since we played them on the opening day of the season full of optimism for the season ahead...
Another dismal result last Tuesday. If you are trying to find positives - and in our current plight what else can we do? - if you took away the first nine and last nine minutes (including stoppage time) we only lost 2-1!
Andy, Ryan and Curt have struggled with player availability in the last couple of weeks and we have been far from full strength in the last couple of games. There was some encouragement, I felt, last Tuesday in the way we moved the ball but we can't gloss over the fact that - at present - we concede a lot of soft goals and don't really offer a consistent attacking threat. Andy and co. aren't writing off the season by any means and while the next few weeks will be used with next season's squad building in mind no one wants to see us getting pumped every week. Onwards and upwards!
OWNERSHIP STATEMENT
In accordance with the Football Association's Rule 2.13 (publication of ownership) in relation to Step 1 to Step 6 Clubs within the National League System East Grinstead Town FC is an unincorporated association / members club and a Community Amateur Sports Club (reg no CASC 02270).
Followuson:
FROM THE Dugout
Welcome back to the Vistavis Community Stadium for this evening's league encounter with AFC Whyteleafe, whom we welcome here alongside their travelling supporters.
It’s been a tough week on the pitch to say the least after our visit to Ashford United and our home game last Tuesday night against Erith. The Erith game was hugely frustrating, as I felt we were the better side in the first half but we ended up going into the interval 3-1 down, and just before half-time we were reduced to ten men which summed up the extent of our luck at the moment. After today's game that red card will see Luke Leppard serve a three-game ban and the unfortunate booking of our skipper Smithy will also see him serve a twogame ban in the upcoming matches.
Sheppey as always will be a tough test, and they themselves require some points as to not be dragged into the relegation dog fight. As for us we have to dust ourselves down and learn from our mistakes which recently always seem to be so costly. We had a positive training session last Thursday night and now we will try to translate that onto the pitch. Saturday's postponement was disappointing, but it will make sure the lads are all fresh for what will be a very difficult game tonight. As always your support means so much to myself and the boys as we navigate this tough period.
I hope you enjoy today's game
Up the Grin!
AndyWillis
AFC WHYTELEAFE TheAwayEnd
AFC Whyteleafe was formed in 2021 by Kelly Waters, replacing another club, Whyteleafe FC, which had existed immediately before. Waters had hoped to purchase the Church Road premises before it was sold to Irama Sports in February 2021, but he discovered the auction a week too late and the sale to Irama went through. Following the withdrawal of Whyteleafe FC from the Isthmian League, and inspired by the story of AFC Wimbledon in 2002, AFC Whyteleafe was born.
The new club was granted a position in the Surrey South Eastern Combination League for the 2021/22 season, having formed a merger of registration with the Balham B team. This still left the club with less than one month to build a squad from scratch, ready for their debut match on 4 September 2021 at home to Earlseld.
A crucial part of the successful formation of the club was securing a ground. Church Road was the preferred choice, and a four-year deal was reached with Irama to play there.
Following a successful rst season, AFC Whyteleafe merged with Whyteleafe Youth FC and Whyteleafe Women ahead of the 2022/23 season to form one AFC Whyteleafe club comprising a men's rst team, U23s, women's team and 30 youth teams from U7 to U18.
In May 2022, the club was admitted into the Southern Counties East League Division One, which sits at Step 6 in the National League System. The club achieved a respectable eighth-place nish in its debut season at Step 6. The following season, Whyteleafe was promoted as champions.
In the following season, 2024/25, Whyteleafe won the Combined Counties South league, gaining promotion to Step 4 in the Isthmian South East League and making a historic appearance in the FA Vase Final at Wembley, where they narrowly lost 2-1 in extra time to Whitstable Town. This season they have continued their upward trajectory and are on course to qualify for the play-offs.
STANDINGS LEAGUE
FIXTURES & RESULTS
21 Oct A Faversham
28 Oct H Deal Town
11 Nov A Three Bridges
24 Feb H AFC Whyteleafe
Sat 28 Feb A Hastings United Isthmian South East
Tues 3 Mar A Deal Town
Sat 7 Mar H VCD Athletic
Sat 10 Mar H Sheppey United
Sat 14 Mar A Herne Bay
Sat 21 Mar H AFC Croydon Athletic
South East
South East
South East 3pm Sat 28 Mar A Erith Town
South East 3pm
Sat 4 Apr H Sittingbourne Isthmian South East 3pm
Mon 6 Apr A Jersey Bulls Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 11 Apr H Faversham Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 18 Apr A Merstham Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 25 Apr H Margate
South East 3pm
TEAM LINE UP
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C.
Ajae Patel
Luke Leppard
Steve Smith ©
Dan Thompson
Curtis Gayler
Dan Perry
Kieron Pamment
Tommy Seale
Tariq Richards
Omar Folkes
Tyler Grant
Leo Vowles
Jordan Maguire-Drew
Jerson Dos Santos
Harry Piper
Lewis McDonnell
Mason Saunders
Reegan Jeffery
Harry Bushell
Ethan Covus
NEXT HOME MATCH
VCD Athletic
WHYTELEAFE
Helge Orome (Captain)
Aziz Sankoh
Mascoll
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN HISTORY
PROGRAMMES FROM THE PAST BY LESTER MEDCALF
The first of the programmes is for East Grinstead v Westfield on Saturday 24 February 2001 in division two of the Sussex County League - though the programme says that it is 2000 and not the correct 2001.
Bruce Talbot’s programme notes welcome our visitors - Westfield is on the outskirts of Hastings - who have only made the journey to East Court once before. It had so far been a bad season for football and we had played twice in both November and January, just once in December and so far just once in February. Inevitably some clubs had managed to play more games than us and “had begun to pull away” at the top of the table. The programme has a couple of match reports. The first report was on our game on the previous Saturday away to Oving. We had scored two first half goals - Steve Greig and Roger Gualtieri - only for Oving to score twice in a four-minute spell halfway through the second half and 2-2 was the final score. The second match report was for the only game we had played in January - when the weather behaved itself for once - at home to Mile Oak. The visitors “showed their attacking prowess” with a couple of goals in the first 20 minutes, though James Hylton kept us in the game by scoring straight after Mile Oak’s second goal. And later in the first half Roger Gualtieri brought us level. And ten minutes into the second half Roger Gualtieri scored again to put us in front. And 3-2 was how that game ended. The programme’s league table showed us in ninth place with Westfield 12th (18 teams in the league). Westfield defended well for much of the first half but we began to look better after half-time. But ten minutes into the second half there was a brawl which most of the players got involved in. There had been a bad tackle on one of our players and many of the players wanted to make their views known. The ref took some time to calm it down and eventually booked three players - one being our Steve Greigand the other two being Westfield players. And a couple of minutes later James Hylton scored what turned out to be the only goal on the match.
GUERNSEY TAKE OFF WITH THE POINTS
Moving on a few years we’ll have a look at the programme we produced for East Grinstead v Guernsey on Saturday 25 February 2017 in the Isthmian League. The match would kick-off at 1pm to allow time for our visitors to fly back from Gatwick to the Channel Islands. Team manager Matt Longhurst refers back to the game we had played on the previous Saturday away to Chipstead. He thought that “we weren’t great in terms of performance but the result was good.” The programme’s match report gives us more information about the game. Our Charlie Harris had scored twice in the first 25 minutes to give us a great start. However just before half-time Chipstead pulled a goal back and then in the first few minutes of the second half they scored twice to lead 3-2 and for a while they threatened more goals. Matt made some changes to freshen things up and with some 10 minutes to go Tashi Jay Kwayie was brought down in the Chipstead penalty area. Charlie Harris stepped up to take the penalty and converted the kick for his own hat-trick which brought us level at 3-3. Things weren’t yet finished and with a couple of minutes to go Dan Hogan’s shot from outside the Chipstead penalty area beat everybody. 4-3 to us and that’s how it was when the ref blew his final whistle.
Richard Tramontin’s Chairman’s notes welcome our visitors from Guernsey. They had recently slipped down the league and were now just above the bottom three. We had had a good last four games with three wins (including that defeat of Chipstead) and just one loss and we were now 18 points clear of the third from bottom club. Though there were still a number of difficult games ahead of us. And the game against Guernsey didn’t turn out as we would have liked. After just a few minutes one of our defenders lost the ball in a Guernsey player’s tackle and the Guernsey player went on to score. We huffed and puffed but to no avail and Guernsey were able to fly home with a 1-0 win.
Ever thought of volunteering to help your local football club?
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The Trident Leagues and Pitching In’s online Volunteer Hub is the place where you can find opportunities and contact your local football club.
Please visit Pitchinginvolunteers.co.uk to find out more
