Fifty Years and Counting
Two long standing members of the club, Arthur Cornish and Roger Philo, have reached fifty years with the club an amazing achievement.
Current chairman Arthur Cornish, who was on the books at West Ham and Watford before joining Southgate Olympic, made his debut in 1970 against Old Stationers and was a member of our first team when we won our second SAL First Division title in 1971/72, the team went unbeaten in the last fourteen games of the season and won the trophy at local rivals Winchmore Hill.
In 1972/73 he was a member of the team that reached the AFA cup final unfortunately losing to Old Actonians at Dulwich Hamlet FC.
The following season the team once again reached the AFA cup final this time beating Old Parkonians at Midland Bank’s ground to win the cup for the second time in the club’s history.
Arthur has gone on to hold many roles in the club including Secretary, Referee’s Secretary, Bar Chairman, President as well as being the current Chairman and a regular on the touchline at Clowes every Saturday with his words of wisdom and encouragement.
Roger continues in a Philo family tradition at the club and began by selling programmes at our former ground in Broomfield Park before making his debut in 1969/70 season away at Merton for the fifth eleven.
He worked his way up the teams, finally making his debut for the first XI in 1974/75 alongside older brother Bill, who skippered the 1’s for a number of seasons.
Roger played for the first team for next ten years or so, skippering them for a number of seasons and getting to three consecutive AFA Senior Cup semi-finals (unfortunately losing them all).
Roger continued playing into the early 90’s before taking on other roles at the club, including being first team coach for 8 years and taking the clubs training sessions.
For the past five years he has been Match/Referee Secretary, Chair of Selection and Chair of our Disciplinary Committee.
May these two long standing members remain at the club for many more years to come.