Sutton is the final Kids Go Free match of the season – Kids go FREE vs Sutton! | WE ARE FGR

In season 22/23 Sutton finished 14^th with 58 points.

They are currently in 24th place (i.e. bottom) on  27 points.

6-game current form table – Sutton are 19th with 6 points, FGR are 9th with 10 points.

Reverse Fixture on 2 Sept 23- Sutton 0 FGR 1 (Bunker).

The away defeat at Crewe Alexandra,  brought their winless run to 3 matches in the league. Sutton have lost 5 of their last 8 matches in L2. Sutton United have conceded an average of 1.84 goals per game since the beginning of the season in the league. Sutton’s current form shows an average number of goals conceded per game of 1.38in the last 8 league matches, which is 25% lower than their current season’s average.

March Results

Crewe 1 Sutton 0

Sutton 1 Grimsby 1

Tranmere 1 Sutton 0

Harry Smith

With the departure of ex-FGR Omar Bugiel Sutton’s main goal threats come from Harry Smith (11 goals), Omari Patrick (6 goals) and Harry Beautyman (5 goals).

Striker Harry Smith has previously played for various clubs including Millwall, Macclesfield, Northampton & Orient.

Midfielder Harry Beautyman is in his second spell at Sutton having played for Peterborough, Northampton & Stevenage in between.

Winger Omari Patrick joined Sutton from Carlisle in the summer having also played for Bradford, Wrexham, Burton & Yeovil amongst other clubs.

January Signings

Sutton United signed Fulham defender Jay Williams on a permanent contract. The 20-year-old Wales youth international joined Fulham from Newport County in 2019 and won the Under-18 Premier League South with the London side in 2021.

Queens Park Rangers midfielder Stephen Duke-McKenna joined Sutton United on loan until the end of the season. The 23-year-old began his career at Everton, moving to Bolton for a season before joining QPR in 2019.

Sutton signed Guyana striker Deon Moore from seventh-tier Lewes. The former Carshalton Athletic youth player appeared for Peterborough aged 17 and had a spell at Bristol Rovers. He played for Merstham, Bath and Hemel Hempstead before joining Lewes at the beginning of last season, scoring 13 goals in 67 appearances for the Sussex club. He made his debut for Guyana in the summer and scored his first international goal in October 23.

Sutton signed Fulham striker Olly Sanderson and Millwall left-back Nino Adom-Malaki on loan until the end of the season.

Sutton United signed Burton Albion midfielder Charlie Lakin on loan until the end of the season. The 24-year-old spent the first half of this season on loan at AFC Wimbledon where he made 10 appearances. Having come up through the ranks at Birmingham City, Lakin has had loan spells at Stevenage and Ross County.

Steve Morrison

Sutton Manager Matt Gray, who had won them promotion to the EFL,was sacked on 19^th December 23 and replaced by Steve Morrison.

Steven Morison started his career at Northampton at the age of 16,. He made his first-team debut in 2002. Morison joined Conference South club Bishops Stortford for an undisclosed fee in November 2004. After just under two years playing regularly at Stortford, he signed for Stevenage for a “small four-figure fee” in August 2006. During his first season with the club, Morison scored the winning goal in the 2007 FA Trophy Final the first competitive cup final to be held at the new Wembley Stadium. He also helped the club win the Fa Trophy again in May 2009, in what was ultimately his last game for the club.

Having scored 86 times in 151 appearances during his three seasons at Stevenage, Morison joined Millwall for £130,000 ahead of the 2009-10 season. He helped the club to secure promotion to the Championship in his first season there. He signed for Premier League club Norwich City in June 2011. After scoring 12 goals in 59 games for Norwich in the top tier of English football, Morison signed for Leeds in January 2013. He rejoined Millwall on a season-long loan after just five months at Leeds. He returned to Leeds for the 2014-15 season, before signing for Millwall on a permanent basis in August 2015.

Morison scored the winning goal in the 2017 EFL L1 Play Off Final to help Millwall achieve promotion back into the Championship during the 2016-17 season. He played over 300 games for Millwall over his two spells with the club, scoring 92 goals, which ranks him in third place in Millwall’s all time goal scorers list Morison joined Shrewsbury on an initial season-long loan agreement in June 2019. Although the transfer was made permanent at the start of the 2019-20 season , Morison announced his retirement from playing in October 2019. Morison also earned eight caps for the England C team, scoring three goals. Morison qualified to play Wales through his Welsh ancestry, and made his senior international debut in August 2010, representing Wales 20 times and scoring one goal.

Having already gained his coaching badges whilst playing, Morison was appointed Northampton Town’s under-18 coach, before later joining Championship club Cardiff as the lead coach of the club’s under-23 team. Following a spell as caretaker manager, he was appointed as first-team manager of Cardiff in November 2021, a position he held until September 2022. He was appointed as manager of Hornchurch in June 2023 and then became the manager of Sutton United in January 2024.

Omar Bugiel will be remembered by many Rovers fans.  The German-born Lebanese striker played for Rovers between 2016 and 2018, making 35 appearances and scoring 8 times for FGR in both the National League and League 2.  After a move to Bromley, Omar moved on to Sutton (141 appearances, 22 goals) in 2019. Last season he was Sutton’s equal top scorer. He has now moved to nearby Wimbledon. He has represented Lebanon on 10 occasions, scoring once.

Goalkeeper Steve Arnold joined Sutton in the summer 2023. He played for FGR between 2014 – 2016. He made 43 appearances. His last match was the 3-1 defeat to Grimsby ln the Conference play-off final at Wembley.

Omar Bugiel

Steve Arnold

Sutton Utd played the first ever EFL game in their 123-year history at The New Lawn. The match in Nailsworth was memorable – an opener from Matty Stevens on 30 minutes, an Omar Bugiel (ex-FGR) equaliser on 69 minutes, then an Ebou Adams winner in injury time securing a 2-1 win for Rovers.

Promotion to the EFL had one big downside for Sutton.  They had to replace their 3G playing surface with grass – the EFL doesn’t allow artificial surfaces.  Sutton chairman Bruce Elliott branded the EFL ‘dinosaurs’ for their attitude to synthetic playing surfaces.  Elliott believes the 3G surface encouraged Sutton’s passing game and helped them achieve promotion.  He believes the cost of grassing the pitch at Gander Green Lane is probably around £500,000.  Part of this cost was the loss of revenue that the club used to earn from hiring out the pitch – he says the ground was used constantly, but that has now changed.

It is Sutton’s FA Cup exploits that have brought them most fame.

In 1988–89, Sutton completed one of the biggest FA Cup shocks in the competition’s history, defeating First Division side Coventry (who had won the competition in 1987) 2–1 in the third round. On 28 January 1989 Sutton lost to Norwich of the First Division 8–0 in the fourth round.

Sutton made all sorts of headlines during the 2016–17 season. Starting with the 4^th Qualifying round when they knocked out FGR.  They then reached the Fifth Round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history, beating three Football League teams, Cheltenham, AFC Wimbledon and Leeds Utd on the way.

They finally lost 2–0 at home to Arsenal but all the headlines that day were about their 45-year-old, 23 stone, reserve goalkeeper, Wayne Shaw. Wayne was pictured tucking into a pasty in the 83rd minute of the tie and became an almost instant celebrity.  But things took a turn when the Gambling Commission launched a probe and found that there were odds of 8/1 pre-match that Wayne would be pictured eating a pie during the game.  Wayne was forced to resign!

For a complete history of Sutton click here – History – Sutton United

Sutton United Fans Forum – Fans’ Forum – Sutton United

Sutton have one of the league’s more unusual mascots, and at 9ft, probably one of the tallest.  Jenny the Giraffe lays claim to being one of the very few female mascots and has been strutting her stuff around Gander Green Lane since 2009 – surely a Goose would be more appropriate.

Jenny took part in the 2010 Mascot Grand National and finished 5th out of 41 runners.

Don’t worry giraffes are not native to Surrey although you might miss most of the match if you find yourself sitting behind one.