Carshalton Athletic

Carshalton Athletic go into this season in the Isthmian League, still chasing the kind of run that took them into the Fourth Qualifying Round of the FA Cup in 2019 and, further back, all the way to a Second Round Proper tie against Torquay United in 1982–83.

A recreational facility for teenage boys, the Mill Lane Mission, put a team together in 1905, and it was only after amalgamating with Carshalton St Andrews two years later that the club took its current identity. That switch to all red only became final in the 2008–09 season.

The club held on, and its honours board still carries two Corinthian League titles from the early 1950s and an Isthmian League Division One (South) championship in 2002–03.

Roy Hodgson wound down his playing career at the War Memorial Sports Ground before he went on to manage across Europe and take charge of England, a detail Carshalton supporters bring up more readily than most of the club's cup runs.

None of that carries the weight of the Sutton Derby. Carshalton and Sutton United have met repeatedly in Surrey Senior Cup finals, and Carshalton came away beaten in 1992–93, 1994–95 and 1998–99 — a run of final defeats that still colours how the fixture is talked about locally. Kingstonian and Tooting & Mitcham United fill out the rivalry, the latter drawing a crowd of more than 8,000 for a derby back in 1959, but it is Sutton who matter most.