Rugby, QPR and a statue: Virginia Water goalkeeper Matt Jones hits 400 milestone

On Saturday, Virginia Water goalkeeper Matt Jones hit a 400 game milestone for the club in a 2-2 draw at home with Wokingham Town.

Matt hadn’t wanted to much fanfare, but hadn’t reckoned with Wokingham Town’s eagle-eared photographer and Wokingham Paper reporter Andrew Batt, who promptly reported the news to us here at Football in Berkshire.

Naturally we got in touch with Matt and he kindly agreed to a chat to mark the occasion, which is an impressive feat in a single spell at a club.

Former manager and Matt’s dad, Ceri Jones remains a big part of the club and is currently CEO as the club eye a move to their own ground. Naturally, the first question was: What has your dad got over you that means you have to keep playing for his club for so long?

“I don’t know. He should pay me more, I’ll tell you that. But no, he’s so invested in it that I’m invested in it equally as much. He managed me at Ascot United at under 18s level, then he jumped over in 2015 and I just joined him,” he says with a smile.

He adds: “I live locally. I still enjoy it. I still enjoy it now. 400 games later, it’s had its ups and downs. But, yeah, he hasn’t got anything over me. I do it off my own back, truth be told. So, yeah, no, it’s all good!”

Milestone

For Jones, reaching 400 games is a slightly bigger challenge than you might think. Back when the side was a Step 7 team in the Surrey Elite League, a league season consisted of 26 matches. On promotion to the Hellenic League Division One East in 2017/18, that league season consisted of 24 games – there were of course cup games, but when you consider a Combined Counties League Division One season is currently 44 games plus cups, that’s quite a disparity.

Jones, 29, is keen though for more, much more: “I still love it. I’m so invested in the club. My hope is to do another 400 more if I can. I’m a keeper, so keepers go a bit longer, but it depends on whether my legs last or not, is the honest truth.

“I’m only getting the mick taken out of me by the gaffer [Paul McCarthy – a former goalkeeper], saying that I’ve lost a few yards on my kicking. So, yeah, we’ll see how we go!”

Reflecting on the club’s rise from Step 7 to becoming an established Step 5 side, and being integral to that, Jones says: “We had a really good group of lads at the time who had been together awhile. We had such a close-knit group that we managed to keep it together from Step 7 to Step 6.

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“The league that we came out of, if you look at some of the teams that came out of it, you’ve got the likes of the Tooting Bec, who have established at Step 6 now. We had Abbey Rangers come out of that league, Balham, who are all doing well at Step 5, so I think it was quite a strong league. And I think we just stayed together and had such a close-knit group that we managed to just get through and just found a way of winning games in that league.”

“Jumping straight up to Step 5 got a little bit harder, when people start to move on and stuff like that. When that happens and we found it hard again for a couple of seasons. I think though we’re pretty established now.

“We’ve got a good setup at the moment.”

Could that happen at the end of this season with the Combined Counties League play-offs? At the time of writing Virginia Water are 11th with 36 points after 27 games, 10 points behind Windsor & Eton in 5th but who have six games in hand.

“I’d love to say we do, but we’ve probably left ourselves a bit to much to do,” says Jones. “We’ll give it a go though, see how many wins we can put together and see where it takes us,” he adds.

Signing for QPR and where he wants to go with Virginia Water

In my occasional conversations with Ceri, he often tells me he’s a rugby man really, which with the deep Welsh accent, despite being the former manager of a double promotion-winning non-league side and now CEO, doesn’t come as much of a surprise as perhaps it might.

I asked Matt then how football took over for him personally, and it all comes down to opportunity. He says: “In truth I played rugby all the way through school but I couldn’t really commit to it. I played youth rugby at Windsor when I was very young but I signed a youth contract at QPR and they played on Sundays. I played for QPR all the way through the youth setup so the rugby took a backward step.

“I don’t think he minded to much, he’s a big cricket guy as well, he was a good cricketer, and I’m still very much into my cricket and play as much as I can over the summer so I’ve got that going for him, he can’t complain too much.

What about the future then? Matt is very clear on that saying: “I’d love to play at Step 4. I’d love us to be able to have a proper crack at it as a club. I don’t think we’re a million miles away from it, this season we had a pretty bad start but since then we’ve been on a brilliant run, I think not losing in 10 or 11 games with eight or nine wins. I think we’ve got the team to do it, it’s just about keeping them together.

“Yeah my long term goal is that I’d like to get Virginia Water up from Step 5, though I don’t think I’m going much further than that,” he laughs.

Legacy

“I wind the chairman up sometimes [Dave McBride] and say ‘where are you going to put my statue?'” when I ask the slightly ridiculous question of ‘how many appearances until they name a stand or the ground after you?’

But it goes to show the importance of having players with longevity and a history at a club. Any club. For a team that’s come from Step 7 and built a reputation as a reliable and solid Step 5 side over a relatively short space of time – eight seasons with two abandoned due to COVID, building a legacy and foundations for the future is important to football. Creating that connection to the past to leverage the future.

One suspects, in years to come we’ll be visiting the Jones stand at Virginia Water.

400 appearances is quite the milestone, let us know the players at your club who’ve matched it or gone further in the comments below.