Today is the 15th anniversary of Egham Town v Ware in the Isthmian League Division 2. It’s not a fixture in itself which will last long in the memory, but it was the day that we lifted the league trophy as Champions! There's a link to photos of the day at the end of this article.

The story of that week begins 7 days earlier when we hosted Witham Town at home in the league. A win on that day would have seen us lift the trophy against our nearest rivals. As it turned out, Witham were party poopers and beat us 2-0 to continue their quest to overtake us and beat us to the title. They then moved to within, I believe, 4 points of us. Witham had two games left to play and we had just the one. Witham were off to Brook House midweek knowing that they had to win to make it a final day decider.

With this in mind, Ware fans and players were faced with the prospect of sitting at home on the Tuesday evening awaiting the result to come through from Brook House. Well, we weren’t having it. So a couple of car loads made the trip on the Tuesday evening to west London to watch Brook House v Witham Town. David Pearson, the three Miller brothers, Richard Knight, Matt Miller and Sean Mynott were all in attendance. We decided to keep a low profile to avoid the potential embarrassment of showing our Ware colours and then seeing Witham win. Brook House scored early and we had one hand on the trophy. The minutes were counting down and the Ware supporters, camped out in the stand at the halfway line, were getting nervous and excited. Calls were being made to the Ware FC clubhouse where the players had just finished training and were awaiting updates. There was something rather beautiful about the fact that the players had given us an incredible season, and now we were the ones to give them the news that they’d won the league. The full-time whistle went and it was over. Brook House 1-0 Witham Town. Ware FC were champions! The video still exists of that exact moment, with Sean on the phone to the clubhouse, the joy on his face clear to see. By the time the full whistle had gone, we’d stripped off our coats to reveal our Ware shirts, with flags draped around us. Quite what the Brook House or Witham players thought, I do not know, and frankly don’t care. We were buzzing!!

The countdown to Saturday’s party game seemed to take forever. The club had arranged a coach the players and fans to travel together. We’d been there all season, even when we’d lost NINE in a row from August to the end of September. The coach journey down there was excellent, with the drinking starting early. Gareth and Stonys had brought along two massive bottles of god knows what - some kind of blue/green cocktail that was lethal. I don’t think we saw them again after that. Egham have a good ground with a covered area behind both goals. That meant us noisy boys, now increased in number to around 30, were able to party all game and sing our songs of celebration.

The game itself was torrid. Glen used the final league as a chance to give some of the squad players a bit of a run out and keep the big guns fresh for the Roy Bailey Trophy Final a few days later (which we also won). We lost the game against Egham 1-0 and, having chatted to many of the others in attendance that day, we can’t really remember anything about it. As the end of the game drew closer, champagne bottles started to appear, with early popping giving us a soaking in the sun. The league trophy presentation took place on the pitch, with our captain Jason Coughlan doing the honours. All the players had their turn with the trophy and then it was the fans turn to lift, kiss and cuddle the trophy.

The journey back was full of more singing and drinking. A drive through Ware high street resulted in an impromptu stop at the Punch House were the trophy was charged with more alcohol. Everyone got to drink from the silverware, even a tee-total Brian Croucher, who had been supporting the club for many decades and was finally seeing his blue and white heroes win a league title. Back at Wodson Park and it was time to open the bar and carry on drinking. Again, the trophy was passed around for more photos and kissing.
clubhouse

In the next few weeks there were plenty more opportunities to celebrate with the win over Waltham Abbey in the RBMT Final giving us a second trophy to cuddle. There was presentation night, when the bar must have been drunk dry. Memories of that night are a bit blurred, but I remember Jim Clemo pouring a glass of red wine over me, resulting in me running to the changing room showers to desperately get the red wine out of my Ware shirt. Soaking wet, I returned and carried on drinking, just as the founding fathers of the club would have wanted. There was lots of drinking and dancing, with “We Are The Champions” being belted out as some poor player’s mother was booted up the backside on multiple occasions. Her equally drunk levels meant she had no idea who it was but continued dancing, laughing and signing anyway. Still more celebrations were to be had when the club were given a float in the Ware Festival Parade. Sandwiched between groups of primary schools dressed as teddy bears, a few of us fans in shirts donned a makeshift open truck and paraded the trophies through the streets to much cheering. Onlookers, presuming that we were the players, must have been puzzled as to how this bunch of misfits had won the league. I believe the real players were on a lads holiday, but we weren’t going to tell people that.

It was an incredible week of celebrations and one which we were so close to repeating in 2019 had that pesky COVID-19 and the brainy folk at the FA not got in the way of. But we will get back to those days and make memories that will last as long as these ones have.

Photos of the day can be found here.