The birth of the Albion
17 May 2011

Guildford Albion’s name can be traced back to a couple of drunken conversations held in various pubs in and around Guildford. Andy Masters (known affectionately to all and sundry as ‘the Lizard’), used to day dream about setting up a decent football team in Guildford. Stung by the injustice of the council selling the ground of the town’s original team, Guildford City, back in the seventies, he dreamed of a new Guildford team with a seventy thousand seater stadium entertaining the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal every week. He dreamed of kids all over Manchester begging their parents for replica shirts from this amazing Guildford side, a superstore, an extensive youth side based on the Ajax model etc. Boz and Rob set up a Guildford Albion side on Championship Manager and managed to win the League, FA Cup and European Cup within the space of a couple of seasons so it seemed a realistic idea.

Unfortunately his plans revolved around winning the lottery on a roll over week while simultaneously being bequeathed the entire fortune of Bill Gates who would obviously have to die thirty years prematurely. He did have the idea of putting an advert in the paper along the lines of:

Non existent football club in need of multi millionaire chairman. No time wasters please.

But many of Lizard's friends didn’t think this sort of approach would really work. Not surprisingly they were getting a bit fed up with his fantasy world which seemed to dominate everything he ever talked about. Even he started to worry when while driving the car he got stuck in a daydream about the club’s policy on disabled access to this as-yet unbuilt ground and nearly crashed. Being an obsessed West Brom fan it seemed natural that the team would be called Guildford Albion but armed with a name and nothing else it did look like this amazing team would never actually exist.

In steps Rob

That was until Rob Hunt stepped in during the Spring of 2002 with a cunning plan: a Sunday League side called Guildford Albion. Exhaustive talks were held with Sam and other drinkers at the Drummond public house and a team was finally registered with the Surrey and Hants Border League. Starting in Division Four (South) the club aimed to uphold the best traditions of gentlemanly behaviour, abuse of pool equipment, appalling dancing and alcohol abuse (talk to gobbers about that one!). Now, after a storming run last season and subsequently winning promotion to Division Two, the Albion are on track to achieving Lizard's dream. Only one more division to go