It’s a rare thing in non-league for a player to remain loyal to a club long enough to make 200 appearances for them in the modern era. So we were delighted to celebrate Hakeem Adelakun’s double century of appearances for the club at the start of this season.

Prior to our game against Abbey Rangers on Tuesday night, Hak was presented with a special award from Dave Pearce of Perfect Panes Window Cleaning – his sponsor for the season – to mark the milestone.

Adelakun first joined the cub under James Bracken back in 2018 and was part of a cabal of former Crystal Palace academy players in the squad as we punched above our weight in the Isthmian Premier League. Looked up to by his younger team-mates, he is a smiling, sensible presence off the pitch, but a fierce competitor and vocal leader on it, featuring at left-back in his early days here, but latterly more often as a centre-back or midfielder.

He left as we neared relegation from Step 3 during a tumultuous 2022/23 campaign, but returned to King George’s Field in the summer of 2024, when his former team-mate Mu Maan became manager, and has remained a mainstay ever since.
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Now 35, he brings experience to the dressing room and, while a hamstring problem has kept him out of action since the first match of this season, we will all feel that bit more comfortable when he is back on the pitch.
Congratulations, Hak, and here’s to many more!

We caught up with Warren as we wrapped up our pre-season schedule to find out how he has enjoyed his first few weeks as Corinthian-Casuals manager, and get his thoughts on the fixture list, beginning with a trip to his former club Fleet Town…

How has everything gone since you’ve come in as manager?

I think we’ve come a long way in the four or five weeks from the start. I think we’ve done really well, although the performance at Woking Academy was a little bit of a backward step.

I felt we set the standard against a very strong Whyteleafe team and up to that point we’d improved every game.  But it’s so hard with friendlies because you’re trying to test players out, work out how you’re going to play, both in shape and personnel, and you’re also giving people a game to see them.

How pleased are you with the composition of the squad you’ve put together at this point?

There’s always room for improvements, but I think we’ve got some good players in place. But it’s important to look for an improvement all the time so people don’t get complacent like I think they did on Tuesday evening. I’m always looking to improve, but some of the boys who have come in have done really well.

I’m not unhappy with the situation, but like I said to them at full-time on Tuesday, “We’ve got Westfield on Friday night and then it’s the first game of the season… and we need to improve.”

Can you introduce us to your backroom staff?
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I’ll start with Simon Payne, who’s my assistant manager and was with me in my previous roles, then Jackson Broome is my first-team coach, having worked at Raynes Park, Chipstead and Croydon before. And Carly Doyle stays on as physio, which is great news.

​How are you getting to grips with the club as a whole?

I’m loving it, really enjoying it. We’re putting a lot of effort into making it nicer for everyone in the changing room – Simon does a lot of work behind the scenes and it’s really nicely tidied up. It’s a lovely place to be. The atmosphere has been great, the support has been great, so I’m really enjoying the first month of being here. It’s a fantastic club and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to manage here. I’ve just got to do a good job now.

Looking ahead to the start of the season proper, you go straight back to your former club Fleet Town for our first league fixture this weekend…

Yeah, you couldn’t write it really. It’ll be good to go back there and see some of the people there. Like Corinthian-Casuals, it’s a fantastic club, with lovely people. It was so funny when I saw the fixtures come out, but we’ll go down there and enjoy it. They’re building a new team and so are we, so it should be a good game.

How excited are you to get going with the competitive games now?

Oh, yeah, I can’t wait. I’m not sure about having nine games in August! There’s no need to have nine games in one month, and then you have five in September and five in October. Players’ bodies aren’t ready yet to do nine games in a month like that – you need to allow for a bit of recuperation. I just think it’s too much, but that’s down to how they do the fixtures.

Finally, what has the welcome from the fans been like for you here?
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Yeah, lovely – they’re really nice people. You can’t ask for better support and better fans at this level. I think we’ve got one of the best – or the best fan base at Corinthian-Casuals. Everything so far has been positive, which is nice. But the ultimate thing is we’ve got to get the results from our games. That’s it. And that first month’s going to be tough, so we need to be ready.

It is 120 years since Corinthian sent Belgium packing with a 12-0 victory in Leyton. Dominic Bliss revisits a game we have a dozen reasons to be proud of…

It might be hard to believe, given the status Belgium have gone on to achieve in the international game, but there was a time when the British press were patronisingly congratulating them on their “pretty conception of passing” after they had been beaten 12-0 – that’s TWELVE-NIL – by the Corinthians.

Granted, this was January 1906, more than 60 years before professionalism was introduced in Belgium, and it was technically a Belgian Association XI, presumably because they were playing club opposition and not a fellow national team. However, the Red Devils fielded nine full internationals and still found themselves completely outmatched on a soggy east London pitch.
 
‘Corinthians rout the Belgians!’ crowed the newspaper headlines about the goal-fest at Leyton, erstwhile home of Essex CCC. It was clearly a lucky venue for our forebears when facing teams nicknamed the Red Devils, because two years earlier they also inflicted what remains Manchester United’s record defeat there, with an 11-3 victory.

The general consensus was that the result didn’t flatter the Londoners, and that the Belgians were “too mild” in the middle of the park. This was a common complaint about continental opponents at the time, as English amateurs were known to be particularly physical in their approach, having learned the game on public school playing fields, where anything went.

The match report in Lloyd’s Weekly (a now long-since defunct Sunday newspaper) gave a breathless description of Corinthian’s “dashing, lengthy limbed, go-ahead forwards”, asserting that their free-flowing attacking football was too high-octane for the Belgians.

“The way that Harris, Wright and Co. pedipulated the ball was an object lesson to our visitors which it is sincerely hoped will bear fruit,” the star-struck reporter added, sending this Corinthian-Casuals historian to the dictionary to look up the word ‘pedipulate’ 120 years later.

Meanwhile, the Morning Post focused on the Corinthians’ “long, swinging passes,” for which they were renowned at the time. These days we’d call it switching the play and back then it often bamboozled opposition defences, who were used to dealing with either head-down dribblers, or a short-passing combination game. On a slippery surface, the quick-thinking play of the Londoners had the Belgians sliding this way and that as the forwards “did what they liked with the ball”.

That Corinthian vintage also boasted some of the most lethal forwards in our club’s history, all known for striking the ball hard and true. The prolific S.S. Harris helped himself to four goals that day, while S.H. Day and C.W. Alexander registered a hat-trick each and G.C. Vassall bagged a brace. By all accounts it could have been more.

“Feye, the Belgian goalkeeper, had no chance whatever with the shots that scored,” the Lloyd’s report continued, “and it must be mentioned in fairness to that custodian that he kept out several warm shots.”
That day, it was agreed, Belgium had shown they had “the makings” of good players. They had only played their first official international two years earlier and only began to wear red shortly before they played the Corinthians.

In the decades to come the Red Devils would become one of Europe’s strongest international sides, regularly outperforming their relatively small population and even spending a remarkable 1,442 days as FIFA’s number one ranked team between 2015 and 2021. Looking back, it’s probably fair to say they learned the lessons they needed to that day in Leyton!
 
06.01.1906, Leyton
 
Corinthian 12
S.S. Harris 4, C.W. Alexander 3, S.H. Day 3, G.C. Vassall 2
 
Belgian Association 0
 
Corinthian: T.S. Rowlandson, C.C. Page, W.U. Timmis, K.R.G. Hunt, G.B. Canny, C.D. McIver, G.C. Vassall, S.H. Day, C.W. Alexander, S.S. Harris, E.G.D. Wright

If you can’t make it to the game on matchday, you’re often left following events on social media and live score apps, but the detail and the depth of our coverage depends on a number of factors, from how many volunteers we have available to whether we are home or away. Head of Media, Dominic Bliss , breaks down how we cover Corinthian-Casuals matches…

​A notification pings on your phone screen. There’s been a goal in your team’s game, and you’re 1-0 up – and the update tells you that your favourite player scored it. So you head onto social media to praise the main man, only to see another notification on your screen moments later. “Correction”, it begins, before informing you the goalscorer was actually a completely different player. How have they muddled them up?!

It’s a familiar scenario for non-league fans following a match online because they can’t be there in person, but believe me it’s even more frustrating for the media team. It all comes down to the vagaries of non-league football coverage. After all, you might have noticed there aren’t hordes of journalists and administrators at most games at this level. The responsibility falls with a small collection of volunteers from both clubs, and if one person gets an admin detail slightly wrong, the whole thing can become a law unto itself.

So how do the details from a Step 5 non-league football match find their way to your phone? In our league, a lot of it is down to Football Web Pages (FWP), a website and app that lists fixtures for all Combined Counties and Isthmian League clubs. Their contract with those two organisations – among others – requires that a club official from the home side in any given fixture must input the line-ups of both teams, including shirt numbers, and then update the match details as it plays out. This means pressing a button when the game kicks off, and also when the ref blows for half-time and full time.

In between times, the same person must register the goals as they go in, or as soon as they get the chance, and has the option to input substitutes, bookings and red cards, as well as the attendance. Once the info is registered on FWP, it will automatically appear on the respective clubs’ official X and BlueSky pages, meaning those goal alerts you receive are input by whoever the home side has put on FWP admin duty. We update Instagram when the line-ups come in, then at half-time and full time, but goal alerts are generally reserved for X, as we think that correlates best with the nature of the respective platforms. Goal videos and interviews tend to go up on Instagram later, as part of our post-match coverage.

Many clubs will have a dedicated administrator who does all of this, and it’s often done very efficiently, but there are occasions when an already stretched team of matchday volunteers can only do the bare minimum, and sometimes quite some time after the incident has occurred. I have been present at away games in the past when the chair of the opposition is doing almost everything – greeting the visiting officials, turning on the floodlights, showing the visiting team to the dressing rooms, and then doing media duties, from updating apps to announcing everything over the PA system.

This means the media team for the away club are sometimes left powerless to rectify any errors made by their opposite number. If an error is made on the teamsheet, we have to seek out the home admin to ask them to correct it, and the same goes for mistaken identity on goalscorer, or if a sub is sent on wearing a different shirt number to that which he was registered on FWP before kick-off. So when you see the goalscorer’s name corrected five minutes after a goal has been announced, that’s what has happened. On one occasion, I had to rush to the clubhouse at an away ground to ask a member of bar staff to press the button that confirmed the game had kicked off when we were 25 minutes – and two goals – into the match.

The potential problems grew after Twitter was rebranded as X and, under new ownership, decided to limit the amount of uploads an account could post per day. Suddenly, FWP updates on matches would cease altogether midway through a match leaving fans following on social media guessing what was going on. Often, we’d spot this had happened and manually post the details until full-time, but it led to some occurrences of goal alerts doubling up and differing.

This is why you’ll notice the media admins for Casuals often look so pained and alert on away matchdays, working out what on earth has gone wrong with the updates this time.

If you spot it, please try not to show anyone up publicly, just drop us a DM and let us know things aren’t quite working as they should. Or simply trust that we’ll notice and sort it out as soon as we can. Remember, everyone in our media team is a fan who has decided to volunteer – we’re doing this out of love for the club.

For the same reason, we might not always have enough media volunteers on a matchday to capture the goals on video, or produce a full match report the following morning. We will always try to do it all, but we also understand that not everyone can make it to every game.

We like to think we keep on top of things pretty well, and we are extremely lucky to have a service as good as FWP working with our league. But every now and then, the lack of resources at this level can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication.

Hopefully this explainer gives you a bit of insight into the matchday media operation at our club. And if you don’t have Football Web Pages’ app on your phone, download it, select Corinthian-Casuals as your chosen club, and turn on notifications for matchdays. That way you’ll be kept in the loop… to the best of our ability, at least!

 ​Earlier this year we received a parcel from South Africa, where long-time Corinthian-Casuals member David Bradshaw now resides.

Bradshaw’s association with the club goes back more than 70 years, in which time he has been a supporter, player, committeeman and member. He began attending games as a boy in our days at the Oval, and started training with us in 1959, after which he became a regular for the ‘A’ team and Schools XI. His association has continued in one way or another ever since and he now follows us from a distance from his home just outside Johannesburg.

In recent times, following an appeal to members for memorabilia to help build our archive, Bradshaw has donated a number of items, including programmes, photographs and newsletters going back to the early years of the amalgamated Corinthian-Casuals FC. It is the generosity of people like David, and others who have done the same, that helps to keep our history alive.

His most recent parcel included programmes from games against Kingstonian, Clapton and Crystal Palace between 1962 and 1963, and another from a game between an Isthmian League XI and a Japan touring team, played at Bromley’s Hayes Lane in 1960, in which Causals inside-right Robin Trimby represented the League.
We have added these to the Bradshaw Collection in our archive and thank David immensely for his contribution.

As last season drew to a close, our head of media and heritage, Dominic Bliss, got in touch with David to arrange a phone interview about his connection to the club…

How did you first come into contact with Corinthian-Casuals?

My uncle was always talking about them, and I think I was about 10 or 11 when he took me to see them play at the Oval – I think it was 1952.

We used to go to the Oval every other Saturday, and there used to be a supporters’ coach, which left the Oval to go to Walthamstow, or Ilford, or Wycombe, or Bromley… wherever the away games were. We were supporting them every week, and my mum knitted me a chocolate-and-pink scarf. I remember that. Obviously, that was during one of their highlight periods, getting to Wembley in 1956 and playing Bishop Auckland there in front of 80,000 for the Amateur Cup final. But we didn’t get to the replay up there – they played it at Middlesbrough.

Then, when I got older and I went to work, I started training with Casuals, under Doug Flack. It was the end of Doug’s time – he had been the manager at Wembley in ’56 – and we trained twice a week. One session was outdoors and one was indoors in a hall or gymnasium. That was when I was working in the City of London.

My first real game was at Dulwich Hamlet, playing for the reserves, but I only ever played one other game for the reserves, at Hendon away in a night game. Otherwise I was playing for the ‘A’ team and Schools team. In those days, people like Doug Insole, when they were getting on, kept playing for the ‘A’ side. I remember playing alongside John Balson, Martin Tyler and David Hutchinson as well. I think Micky Stewart even turned out now and again.
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The Schools side was a very social team because, when we got the train back from wherever we’d been for the game, we’d have to go to the pub in London together, and enjoy a social get together. I remember there was Malcolm Hamer, Roger Thomas, Stuart Inger – those are the names that jump out. 

​It just shows the global reach of the Corinthian story! What would you say have been your most memorable moments with the club?
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When you are very young, meeting the players and getting their autographs at the Oval is a real highlight. We were there so regularly that we knew, at half-time, they went into the Vauxhall Stand, and somehow – it could have been Tiny Liddle got us in there – we were able to get the signatures. That, to me, was the real highlight of my time with the club. It affected me so much if we lost in those days, like any supporter who loves their club. It’s been in my blood since I was 10 or 11.

I’ve always had this very soft spot for the club in my heart, ever since then. I moved back to South Africa permanently in 1980, and I look for the result every Saturday night here, before I go to bed, and then check for the match report the next day.

It’s good to know there are people around the world anticipating our updates!

Very much so! In the period when I was settling in here back in the early Eighties, I lost touch for a bit. But now it’s a regular weekly thing and I’m always looking online to see what you put up there. It could be new players joining, and it goes into a little bit of history and different things which I find very interesting because you learn more.

I had four children – I had a boy, girl and twins, so I doubled my money – and they’ve all had two each except one couple who had three. So I’ve got nine grandchildren and they’re all sporty as hell and, funnily enough, two are good soccer players. None of them play rugby, which is like a religion here, but none of them have taken that up.

They’re all under 16, so they’re not playing in men’s football yet, but one’s in Holland playing quite good soccer. I’ve always thought, if he ever gets really good, I must tell him where he must go.

Get him to Casuals!

That would be brilliant, wouldn’t it? One day...

If you have Corinthian-Casuals memorabilia that you would like to donate to the club archive, please email our heritage officer at   [email protected] 

​When you were there at the Corinthians Arena with Brazil, did you think to yourself, I was with the team that founded this club. It must have been the strangest of full-circle moments.

Absolutely. I was, yeah. I was thinking about it, and when I was there, I was putting all the pieces together again. I got on the website and looked at the history – it was nice. So it was nice to think back like that.

What position did you play and what sort of player were you?

Left-back or left centre-back. I had a good left foot, that’s for sure. I could pass it. I’m a good passer, short and long distances. Obviously, with my height, not bad in the air. But that was my strength – I had a good left foot and I just, tactically, understood the game. That’s gone on and helped me with my coaching. I saw the bigger picture and understood my position and how to be in the correct place as much as I could be.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have that durability, or athletic ability to go on to better things, but I certainly enjoy playing and it helped me with that step into coaching.

Let me ask you about two managerial figures from your football journey, beginning with Brian Adamson.

Oh, I’ve got really fond memories of working with Brian. When he left and went from Banstead to Casuals, it was big. Part of the reason that I went was because it was him. I didn’t know much about the club at that point, but I’d enjoyed working with him.

I haven’t seen him so much recently, but he reached out to me a week or so ago by text and it was nice to hear from him. I’ll always remember him as a really good guy – a football guy, but a great gentleman.

Speaking of gentleman, tell us a bit about Carlo Ancelotti and how important your time working with him has been.

He has been, for sure, the biggest influence on my career. Over time, we’ve become really good friends as well. There was a period of eight years of not working together between the end of 2016, when I went to Derby and Swansea as manager, and going back to work with him in 2025, but we remained good friends and often met up or spoke. It’s great to be involved with him again after all these years – that’s a relationship that goes back to 2009.

Going to the World Cup must be right up there on your bucket list from when you were a football-mad boy.
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Oh wow. I think my first memory of a World Cup was ‘82, in Spain and Bryan Robson playing in central midfield for England. I have vague memories of that one, but then really good memories of 86, 90 and moving forward. Now, in 2026, I’m going to a World Cup, but there’s going to a World Cup… and there’s going to a World Cup with Brazil, which is a very, very special thing. It’s getting close now. When we first signed, it seemed so far away.

Brazil's World Cup campaign begins with their first group stage fixture, against Morocco on Saturday 13 June, at 11pm BST, before they take on Haiti and Scotland.   Meanwhile, you can watch all the England games at this World Cup in the Corinthian-Casuals clubhouse, starting with the Three Lions' opener against Croatia on  Wednesday 17 June, at 9pm, for which the bar opens at 7pm. 

Don't miss our Fun Day and BBQ ahead of England's final group stage game, against Panama on Saturday 27 June, when we'll open the gates at 4pm and  have inflatable fun runs and It's a Knockout! games throughout the afternoon before the match kicks off at 10pm! Bring your family and friends down for a bit of summer tournament fun.

How are you feeling as you look around the place as manager now?

It’s a very nice feeling. It’s a beautiful sunny day and it’s obviously a fantastic club and set-up here. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve done a few years at other clubs, but this has always been a club that I wanted to get involved with.

You know the club well, of course, having been here as assistant for a spell at the end of the 2022/23 season…

That’s right, I’ve coached here with Brian Adamson recently, and many, many years ago, when I played for Dulwich Hamlet, I was on loan here as a player. That was in 2001/02, when I had a bad knee ligament injury. I came down here on loan and you had the likes of Micky Stephens and Kristian Sorenson here.

So, I did play here for a couple of months, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, on both occasions. The support is superb and just everything about the club is special.

I’m glad you mentioned our support, because we have a really passionate fanbase.

Well, yeah. You’ve got a massive following here and they’re not shy to say what they think, which I don’t mind. I’ll be interested in their feedback and I look forward to the pressure that I’m going to be under to get results.

But do you know what? We will try and bring in a style of football that entertains. Anyone that knows me or the clubs that I’ve been at will know we play attacking football. We have a go at teams – that’s how I like to play the game and I won’t change that way of playing football.

How would you describe yourself as a manager?

What you see is what you get. I’m quite old school in that respect, whether that’s a good or bad thing. I’m very respectful and honest with people. And I do give people a chance. People will always know where they stand and I always say to anyone I work with, “Pick up the phone if there’s an issue, don’t WhatsApp and text and all that malarkey because a conversation that takes five hours could have been dealt with in five minutes.”
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I’m easily approachable and anyone that knows me can always have a conversation if they need to.

You reached the play-off final this season with Fleet Town. What do you think it takes to get out of this division?

I think you’ve got to have good squad depth, as I found out… and there’s an element of luck in keeping the players fit, but it is important to do that.

I always say to players, “It’s not what you do on the pitch, it’s what you do off it,” and by that I mean how you conduct your life, your health, your diet, down to what you do on a Friday night, or the night before a game, et cetera.

I acquired some good players at Fleet, and it was good to get to the play-off final. I picked the club up, I think, in ninth or 10th place, so to get to there we really had to dig in, but I had good characters. I do think that comes from the top – to have good characters that have a never-say-die attitude.

You’ve brought Simon Payne with you as assistant manager. How far back do you two go?

He was my dad’s boss, so I’ve known Simon since I was 12 or 13. He’s a very loyal, very nice person and he loves his football. He’s enthusiastic about the game and on top of the football input, he will also be here before the games with all the gels, the Haribos, the waters, the Lucozades. He looks after the players so much and he’s just such a great person – he’s got your back. He’s a good person to work with and he’s a nice one to bounce off, because when I’ve got the hump, I can say it to him and get it off my chest!

He knows this ground too, from when we were here with Epsom & Ewell a couple of years ago – he did some of the electrics here with his business.

What have you spoken to the Chairman about regarding the road ahead?
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I think it’s important to have a good foundation and training facilities. It’s like anything where you get out what you put in. If you train a lot and work hard, it should show on the pitch, and obviously you need to have the right players in place. I’m sure, with the players that are at Casuals currently we will have that, because there is a good team here, but there will be additions in certain areas because the club want to succeed and get out of this division. 

What does your immediate to-do list look like?

Having good staff and support behind me is the first thing to sort, and the spine of the team, from the goalkeeper to the number nine. I think it’s important to have a good spine.

You’ve also got to look at players that get through a season without injuries. You can have players that are good, but then they’re injured more often than not, and that’s no good to anyone. So I always look at someone who’s had 40 games here, or 38 games there. That’s important for continuity in the team.

We’ve got a very successful development squad here too.

Yeah, and that’s fantastic. I will be involved in that with Paul Hill, because I think it’s important to bring in the Under-23s and to have the attitude that, if they’re good enough, they play. You’re only as good as your last game. I don’t give a monkeys what you did last year, or two years ago. If you’re good now, you play, and if you haven’t been playing well, you won’t play. I don’t care who you are.

What do you think is the potential here?

Well, the potential is to get out of the division. This is a really, really tough league. I think the Combined Counties has been very competitive for many years. You’ve obviously had your Whyteleafes and Farnhams that had a significant budget in recent times, but there’s not so much of that now. That’s why you see results week in, week out, that leave you thinking, “How’s that happened? How have they beaten them?” Everyone beats everyone and it’s just about who wants it on the day – show the most desire, passion, endeavour, and you’ll win the game. Of course, you’ve got to have ability and skill, but you’ve also got to have a bit of heart, for me.

I was fortunate enough to see you play in your days top-scoring for Banstead Athletic, before you moved up the leagues with Carshalton and Dulwich. You were a tough, all-action centre-forward. Does that inform your approach as a manager?
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Yeah, I didn’t mind mixing it, you’re right, and I like the psychological ways and means of getting the better of your opponent in football, whether it’s being physical, or just to get in people’s heads – but always fairly.
More than anything, I’m just looking forward to the season ahead and to getting going in pre-season now.

Interview by Dominic Bliss
Images: Harvey Abbott and  Stuart Tree

Warren Burton is the new first-team manager of Corinthian-Casuals Football Club.
 
The former Fleet Town, Epsom & Ewell and Molesey boss brings plenty of experience to the role and a wealth of knowledge of this level, having led Fleet to the play-off final in the Combined Counties Premier Division South this season.
 
Burton knows the club well. He had a loan spell here as a player in the 2001/02 season and acted as assistant coach to Brian Adamson during his interim spell in charge of the team at the end of our 2022/23 Isthmian Premier League campaign. He also worked at King George’s Field when managing Epsom & Ewell during their season as tenants here in 2024/25.
 
A prolific striker in his playing days, Warren is a well-regarded figure in the non-league game, having operated between Steps 2 and 4 during a semi-professional career that took in stints with Dulwich Hamlet, Carshalton Athletic, Banstead Athletic and Molesey.
 
Burton, who brings assistant manager Simon Payne with him, is now looking forward to settling into the club as we begin preparations for the 2026/27 season.
 
“It’s a fantastic club and set-up, and I’m really looking forward to it,” he said upon his unveiling at the Armada Group Stadium. “I’ve done a few years at other clubs, but for me, this has always been one that I’ve wanted to get involved with. The support is superb and everything about the club is special.
 
“We will try and bring in a style of football that entertains. Anyone that knows me or the clubs that I’ve been at, will know that we play attacking football – we have a go at teams and that’s how I like to play the game.”

Corinthian-Casuals and Mu Maan have today made the difficult decision to part company, by mutual agreement.

In two seasons as first-team manager, Mu has put together a popular squad of players who helped to restore our pride after two consecutive relegations prior to his arrival. As a former Casuals player, his commitment and deep connection to the club were always in evidence. However, following a second mid-table finish in a row at Step 5, we have decided to go our separate ways.
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We wish Mu nothing but the best for the future and thank him and his staff – Gabriel Odunaike, Richard Blackwell, Mo Maan and Josh Lukwata – for all their efforts over the last two seasons. They will always be welcome at King George’s Field, where they have established a strong bond with the club and the fans.

The club will now focus on installing a new manager to help take us forward, and preparing for next season.

The curtain came down on the 2025/26 season at Corinthian-Casuals on Friday night, after our development squad were beaten 3-2 by Cobham in the semi-finals of the Suburban League Plate.

It felt like an encore for the Casuals faithful as our Under-23s’ season continued for a couple of weeks after the end of the first-team campaign. It offered fans a chance to watch the younger generation in action, and they turned out in numbers to support Paul Hill’s side at Cobham, just as they had done a week earlier to see the team lift the Suburban League Central Division trophy at King George’s Field.

In the end, it wasn’t to be a trophy double in the development squad’s first season since reforming, but Hill was certainly not downhearted as he reflected on his players’ overall success.

“One game doesn’t define the amazing season we’ve all had together and what we have built,” he said.
“If anything, it showed the spirit and character of the team, when going down to 10 men with 60 minutes to play.”

Our semi-final opponents sat third in the league table but have been one of the frontrunners in Central Division this season and the game was competitive from the start, quickly developing into an end-to-end encounter.
Cobham made early in-roads with a series of attacks down the right flank and took the lead after capitalising on a defensive mix-up that left Casuals keeper, Ewan Carlin, exposed on the edge of his area. But Casuals soon struck back, when Theo Soman – one of the breakout stars of the season for the first team – squeezed a low shot home at the near post to make it 1-1.

Then the incident that shaped the rest of the match took place, as our centre-back Cameron Baptiste was sent off after a tangle of legs with an opponent following a 50-50 challenge. It felt very harsh on a key player whose form had seen him finish the season as a first-team regular.

Despite the one-man disadvantage, Casuals started the second half the livelier side, which made it all the more frustrating when Carlin let the ball slip from his grasp after claiming a high ball and saw the hosts pounce on an uncharacteristic error. The young keeper has been one of the development squad’s stand-out performers since stepping up from the Under-18s in the second half of the season. It was his penalty shootout heroics against Slough Town Academy in the previous round that saw us through to the last four, and he stopped another spot kick in the league finale last weekend. He finishes the campaign with plenty of credit in the bank regardless.
Casuals poured forward in search of a second equaliser and George Hockey was unfortunate not to make more of a couple of good opportunities before seeing his penalty kick saved as the half wore on.

Then, moments later, James Payne rose highest to meet an inswinging corner and head us level to a huge roar from the travelling fans behind the goal, and another penalty shootout looked like it might be on the cards.
However, Cobham’s extra man took effect as they regained the ascendancy in the dying minutes, scoring one more time to earn a place in the final, where they’ll take on Colney Heath, winners of the North Division.

From a Casuals perspective, it was truly uplifting to see the supporters rally behind our development squad at the end of a first year that can only be defined as a huge success.

“There have been so many highs this season,” summarised Hill. “Five players making debuts, supporting the first team and making a real impression with the fans.

“Meanwhile, six current Under-18s players have been featuring for the development team throughout the season… and did I forget to mention the Central League title and promotion to the Suburban League Premier Division?!

“As [assistant manager] Mike Fox said to the lads in the dressing room tonight, ‘Wherever your football journey takes you in the future, I’d like to think we have given you a benchmark of how to succeed. You will always look back and remember you were part of this great club, this team and what we have achieved together.’
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“We will now rest, reflect and see what the plans hold for next season to push on again with this great club. Thank you to Mike and [coach] Tom Taylor for all the effort they give on a daily basis, to the club committee for agreeing to enhance the club’s offering, to our great and unique supporters who see what we are trying to do, and most of all to every player in our squad who took on our requirements, standards, and delivered throughout the season.”