What do we plan to do about Surrey Cup farce? Sweet FA...

7:30am Thursday 17th April 2008

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The Surrey FA have revealed there are no plans to revise the rules governing player eligibility for the County's Senior Cup competition any time soon, write Simon Fitzjohn & Stuart Amos.

Kingstonian and Tooting & Mitcham were thrown out of the tournament for fielding ineligible players in their semi-final last month, won 4-0 by Ks.

Ks chairman Mark Anderson has urged the county FA to update the rules using a sub-committee of forward thinkers and talented committee men'.

His manager Alan Dowson has already branded the red tape surrounding the competition as ridiculous, while his counterpart at promotion-chasing Tooting, Billy Smith, admits the cup is no longer top of his priorities.

Surrey FA officials, who took more than a month and two committee meetings to decide the fate of this year's competition, have admitted a rethink of the current regulations was not on the agenda.

"The rules have been there for years. It is not my position to decide or comment on the them," said Challenge Trophies secretary Mike Jermey.

"Changing the rules is not something that has been brought up before or since. It has not even been discussed.

"We are in the middle of the current competition so it won't be discussed until the summer - if at all."

Anderson reopened a bitter war of words with Tooting by claiming the moral high ground in an affair that will see beaten quarter-finalists Merstham and Redhill fight for the right to face Whyteleafe in a tainted final.

The Terrors had originally cited Ks for fielding former Dulwich Hamlet striker Shawn Beveney in last month's clash, before counter claims were levelled at Tooting over on-loan midfielder Dorian Smith.

"To protest after a 4-0 home defeat and then expect to play in the final is taking things to a ridiculous level," Anderson wrote in his programme notes at the weekend.

"We wouldn't have done it - perhaps we just have more moral fibre than them.

"We have lost our final, but I am very pleased to say Tooting & Mitcham won't be playing in it either."

Smith has since sought to draw a line under the saga, but not before taking a swipe at the Surrey FA.

"We could have pushed this further if we had really wanted to. The cup is the bottom of my list of priorities, to be honest," he said.

"You cannot tell me if we had won the game and Ks found out we had fielded an ineligible player, they would not have appealed - that is crazy.

"I fell out of love with the Surrey FA a long time ago.

"There are lot of people sitting on that board who just shouldn't be there. I am just wiping my mouth of it."