When Sutton United’s players, the majority of them preparing for the unknown, reported for pre-season training in July they were set a clear target. Manager Matt Gray had looked through past tables and settled on the magic number that would ensure their Football League foray would not be fleeting. The club had been building gradually for 123 years before reaching the big time, there was too much gone into it for them to fall right back down.
Now, just over midway through the campaign, that 50-point total is on the horizon and Gray will soon be sitting his squad down again to review the good and bad of the campaign so far before planting another number in the back of their minds.
Seventy-five should seal a play-off place for a team who sit third in a congested table. But the wider, level-headed approach will not change for a club that should really remain in pinch-me mode. Heads down, get wins on the board and then see where the journey ends up.
There are no frills at Gander Green Lane and the foundations of their success is based on simplicity. “Call it basic, if you like,” Gray says. Except there is also a shrewd operator on the touchline who is learning all the time and, you sense, hungry to keep climbing.
“I’m not shocked,” he says of Sutton’s standing, on 43 points, ahead of tomorrow’s game at home to fourth-place Northampton Town. “Do I think we’re a little bit higher than where I would have put us? Yeah, but if you said we’d have been third I’d have said I know the belief and character, how we do things. I knew we’d pick up some results along the way and we’d be OK.”
“I’ve done nothing differently this year in terms of my information to the players. It’s very clear, very simple. Basic, if you like. At the start of the season we wanted to still be an EFL club at the end of the season. That would be a huge achievement for everyone connected to the club.
“Don’t get too high, don’t get too low after results and try to put everything back into the next game to keep getting results and keep putting points on the board. When we get to 50 points, I will tell them it’s a huge achievement. So far. The next target would be more often than not 75 points gets you to the play-offs. Now can we get our heads down, not talk about the play-offs or look at a block of games, just look at the next game and put points on the board, hopefully get to 75?
“If we get there with some games left, then we might look at the target of automatic. That will be the next goal once you know you’ve secured play-offs. That’s my logic of how I deal with the team but I’ll be talking to them again after 50. Have a review of the season, see what we do well, see what we can improve on. And once we have that meeting it will be heads back down and take on the next game, grind the points out again.”
On the surface, their transition from what was a “three-quarter time” squad to a full-professional outlet has appeared seamless. The early-season external doubts, the predictions from pundits that they would be fighting to stay up have long been extinguished.
Before the campaign began, so much was made of the club’s need to rip up their profitable all-weather pitch - vital to ensuring they remained solvent while in non-League - and whether a crucial playing advantage would be taken from them.
Since the grass was installed, at great financial cost considering it cost six figures to install and shut down their biggest revenue stream in non-League, they have League Two’s second-best home record with nine wins and three defeats - three points behind Tranmere, who have played one more match.
Equally Gray, and those behind the scenes who predominantly work as volunteers, are more than aware of the progress required in other departments to be at the same level of their now competitors.
“Everyone questioned us, ‘Do you not want to be in the National League with your 3G pitch and home form?’” Gray adds. “Well I think we’ve dispelled that. We’re one of the best teams at home in League Two. Points per game I think we’re the top home team. That’s on the grass. We’ve crossed that one.
“We’ve adapted well and our home form certainly hasn’t changed. Behind the scenes we’re still not where we want to be in terms of the football club but that will all catch up. The most important thing is what’s happening on the pitch and thankfully we’ve kept that going.”
One of the more striking aspects of their season so far has been how even the contributions have been. Twenty-two players have had league minutes, 13 have scored and no one has more than the six netted by Isaac Olaofe and David Ajiboye.
“There’s a flexibility in the squad, a competitiveness and strength in depth to know we have the quality to play week in week out at this level,” Gray says. “We’ve got many players who can score in many different ways. We’re really happy with the squad we’ve created.”
Defensively things could be tighter, only eight teams have conceded more, but at least there is close to guaranteed entertainment and no one has found life easy. On the opening day, leaders Forest Green needed a 91st-minute goal to win 2-1 and Gray’s mind is cast to the same scoreline against Swindon Town in October with the visitors’ second a screamer scored by Jonny Williams, who was in the Wales squad at last summer’s European Championship.
At the same time, he has found that some of the division’s strugglers would not necessarily thrive in the National League - a view previously aired by the Dagenham & Redbridge owner Peter B Freund - even if the overall jump in quality became quickly evident.
“The top teams in the National League- your Stockports, Wrexhams, you can go on - would certainly be mid-table in League Two. But there is a little step up with the top teams in League Two, who are certainly better than anything in the National League. It’s the strength and depth in League Two, it’s there a lot more than the National League.
“It feels like you play a top National League side week in week out. There’s a real variety in what you have to face. That’s what I like about what we’re trying to do, my team and the flexibility of finding as many ways to win a game of football. You come across managers who do things differently tactically, with different styles. Different physicality, different fitness levels. The step up there can be seen.”
Gray wants to keep stepping up too. At 40 there is a long managerial career ahead, he is learning more every week and the praise and attention is undoubtedly nice. But even with a chance to create some distance from third to fourth tomorrow afternoon and an EFL Trophy quarter-final at home to Harrogate in midweek, there will be no getting carried away.
“I’ve been in football all my life and I know how quickly it can soon change,” he adds. “Things are going extremely well but you can’t take your eye off the ball. You have to keep your foot to the pedal, keep grafting extremely hard to keep getting the results that are getting you the success and a bit of limelight.
"I’m hungry, I’m a young manager and I want more success. We’re in the quarter-finals of the Papa John’s, in the automatic places in League Two and we’re certainly not settling for that. We’re trying to push, trying to drive on.”
