Non-League and Academy football writer

CSM London (a current step 7 club) was founded in 2018. However, what CSM London stands for, is Centric Sports Management London, with the club chairman Anees Ikramullah’s (Anees is also a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster) brother – Faheem Ikramullah operating a sports management business, working as a football agent, which is where the name for the club originally came from. Anees has a background in setting-up businesses, and he has a real passion for grassroots and community football. Anees did his PHD in the sustainability of community sports organisations, and so he had ambitions of setting-up a football team, which was of course CSM London. However, Anees and his brother also set-up a sporting organisation alongside that, which was separate from the sports management company. So, over the course of a couple of years, the foundation became bigger, with the club eventually having three teams, in addition to their community work and the programmes that they run in the local community. CSM London have a senior Saturday side (managed by William Brobby), who play in the Essex Alliance League Senior Division. They also have two sides who play Sunday football.

The foundation of CSM London would later become a charity, after receiving charity status, around a year and a half ago. However, going back in time, club chairman Anees Ikramullah was previously with an adult football team and academy called Kitroom Soccer School/Kitroom FC. They used to play in Division Two of the Essex Alliance League for a couple of seasons, but Anees’ footballing passions lay elsewhere, in a more behind the scenes capacity. Anees, Faheem and Will, alongside a strong committee would set out the vision for CSM London, the foundation and the brand. In total there was six people at the first meeting of the club, to map out what the club would look like, as well as their vision. William Brobby agreed to join this new club as the manager, and he would bring in some of his own players. And also, some of the old Kitroom team transitioned into the CSM London team, which was really the start of this new and ambitious club, with a strong committee in charge of the club. Since the inception of the club, CSM London have done some great things for the local community, where they’re based in east London.

The club provides community based activities for local people from different backgrounds, and in doing so, has created a real footballing community outside of the club’s three main teams. The club also runs Coach Ed, which thanks to funding, has given them the opportunity to give young people from the Newham, Redbridge and Hackney area free access to getting an introduction to coaching. 63 coaches have come through that particular club run programme, which is free for people to attend. That is just one example of the club’s tremendous work off the pitch. And on it, this season, CSM London currently sit in 10th place in the Essex Alliance League Senior Division standings (they were promoted back to this league at the end of last season – 2022/23), with 27 points from 22 games played. William Brobby’s side impressively won their most recent league game 5-3 against FC Petrocub London. CSM London’s senior Saturday side play their matches at the West Ham United Foundation (3G pitch), a ground which they share with fellow step 7 side Canning Town. The club are also looking to create a youth team in the future. I recently spoke to CSM London chairman Anees Ikramullah, to learn some more about CSM London.

What have you made of the current 2023/24 season, for CSM London in the Essex Alliance League Senior Division?

Anees: It’s been wild, to be honest with you! We started the season on a Friday night away to Aveley Under 23’s, at their beautiful stadium, and that was our first game back at step 7. They were on a real high as a club because their first team had been promoted to step 2, but the game itself had a cup final feel to it. We had a young team that started for us that day, and it was a game that we would draw. We were quite pleased with that result in the end, but it gave us that impression that we might not have a squad that was quite ready yet, to be at that level of football. We found that the step 7 football that we had left and had been relegated from previously, had become much stronger in that time. The jump that we had from the Premier Division, where we had enjoyed such a phenomenal season (winning three trophies in the process), had actually caught us off guard a little bit. So it wasn’t a great start to this season, with us being stuck on four points for a long time. We were second bottom of the league and things were looking pretty bleak, but then thankfully we picked up in our form. 

We had a couple of players who had returned from injury, which was huge for us, and then suddenly those younger players of the squad were being accompanied by experienced heads, which made a huge difference. We also had a goalscorer called Jaydon Charles, who signed for us. He had signed for us, after playing a friendly match against one of our Sunday teams. He was phenomenal in that match and so we then invited him to come and train with the Saturday side. Jaydon had already played with William Brobby before, and when he played for the club in that friendly, we all said that we’ve got to sign this guy. He’s currently in phenomenal form for the club, in front of goal. And when you’re sitting second from bottom in the league, getting a goalscorer gives real confidence to the team, and it gave a real shift to how we approached games, and so it gave a big, big difference. Our targets at the start of the season were to be in and around the mid-table mark. Of course we want to win everything, but we’ve got to be realistic, and we knew that coming back into the league was going to be tough. We still haven’t escaped from that relegation scrap either, and we won’t be until that’s mathematically the case.

One of the biggest difficulties that we faced when we did get relegated, was that we were never in the relegation zone until the final day of the season. So that just goes to show you, that unless you’re out of the relegation scrap, then you’re never out of it mathematically.

For those who haven’t seen CSM London play, could you describe to me what style of football they like to play?

Anees: I’d be talking on behalf of William Brobby here, but, he’s a football playing man. He doesn’t only want the team to win, he also wants to be entertained. He likes the players to play out from the back, he wants them to be patient, and he also wants the front players to be exciting. So he wants them to run at players, so it’s not quite tiki-taka football, but it’s certainly about controlling the pitch and the ball. It’s funny, because we were implementing that style of football, and earlier in the season we were on the wrong end of results. For example, some defensive lapses and sloppy errors, were seeing us drop points in matches. However, the football hasn’t really changed that much, as I think that it’s about confidence. A couple of personnel have been brought in and also returned to the club, and that fluidity that Will has been after, has returned again. Last season was our best season so far, and the football was beautiful to watch. 

Could you talk me through a bit about the current first team Saturday squad/group of players at CSM London?

Anees: I’ll start at the top. Joe Biscoe is our goalkeeper, and he’s also a committee member, and he has been one of the former managers of our Sunday sides. He’s a big, big character and voice, and a real positive character to be around, and he’s also got a good pair of safe hands. At the back, we have our skipper Michael Payne, who has played at a good level in East Anglia, but since moving to London he joined us through social media. He’s been with us for a couple of seasons now, and he brought in a player called Conrad Doggett, who is another central defender. Him coming back from injury during this season, saw the defence and the rest of the team become much better as a team. Also, Eduard-Valentin Cojocaru is one of our young players, and he is another exciting player, along with Tyrone Banks, who is a winger who can also play at left-back. Then there’s Akinlekan Akintunde, who has been around in central midfield, and also, there’s Elvinas Clements, who has been at the club for a long time, through good and bad times. He’s really improved as a player.

At right-back, Kaslimu Konte is someone who Will has been wanting to join the club for a while. He’s one of my favourites, if I’m being totally honest, because it is so rare that a player is that athletic that they can cover two areas of the pitch at once. He is a right-back, but he’ll pop up on the right flank, and he scored a phenomenal goal against FC Baresi in our cup game, which was a crazy game of football. We threw the game away in the last five minutes, but it was one of those football games that we were happy to be part of, and the football was phenomenal. In the middle of the park for CSM London, you have Nana Sika-Sarfo, Marco Lubrano-Lavadera (Marco is a student of mine at the university) and Matthew Ritz. Alongside those three midfielders is Bilal Hussain, who has had some injuries this season, but he had a brilliant season last season, and he is such a cultured midfielder who scores important goals.

The trio that we have up top for CSM London, is Lewis Grantham, Jaydon Charles and Ramiz Mahmood. Jaydon’s goal record speaks for itself, and Ramiz has picked up goals and assists in pretty much every game since the turn of the year, which is so important, as are all three of those players to the club.

What are some of your personal aims/the clubs hopes for the future, for CSM London?

Anees: When you’re in a division, you want to win it. I don’t think that we’re being unrealistic by saying that we’re not going to do it straight away, but we obviously want to strengthen our position in the league this year, but next year we want to look at how we are going to get ourselves to that next level. We want to look at what FC Baresi are doing, and also what Woodford East and Chadwell Heath Spartans are doing. So let’s see what we’re missing, that those sides have, and sometimes it’s not about players. As sometimes it’s something that you’re doing structurally or in training, and let’s address those gaps, and also see how far we can get up to match that level, that those clubs are at. Eventually we want to be a step 6 team and then a step 5 team, but we also understand that it takes more work than just being a Saturday team. We want to have a development side in the Essex Alliance League, and also have a youth structure set-up, as well. Obviously we know that to progress as a club, it takes being in a stadium. Unfortunately the West Ham Foundation stadium, as amazing as it is, it doesn’t qualify for step six football. 

We are potentially looking at ground-sharing arrangements for the future, but it’s very difficult with the costs and space available. Our very long term aim is to at some point have our own place, and to share that ground with a club like Chadwell Heath Spartans, who we’ve always said we would share with, if either of us get to that point. We think that those relationships with those teams around us are important, and of course there’s rivalries, but I set the tone for the guys, that if they think that they have to be a mean or tough guy, then this isn’t the club for you. As this club has done pretty well so far by being the nice guy, and we’ve got fantastic relationships with leagues and other clubs. At our very starting point, we were giving out £1200 (I work in funding) to other teams to help them start up. For example, Kit Out London were one team, and people would ask us why we were doing this, as we are rivals. But, this is grassroots football, and everyone’s got that same struggle in the game. So whether it’s helping us or you, it’s helping grassroots football at the end of the day, and that’s really our philosophy as a club. We want to push on as high as we can go, but also make sure that we’re working with like minded people, to help support each other in really tough circumstances.

What have been some of CSM London’s highlights (in your opinion), since the club moved into non-League football?

Anees: I’ve got to include last season (2022/23) into the answer. To win three trophies in a season was huge, and to wrap up winning the league with two other trophies, that was amazing. On a club level, the setting-up of other teams, and not just being a single Saturday team, and having a structure as well as the volunteers to run three adult sides, is a big milestone for us. On a more personal level, I think that one of my big ambitions was to make sure that the players didn’t have to pay to play for the club, to play football. And that was something that we’ve only been able to bring in this year, and that’s with thanks to our sponsors and the various funding that has come into the club. We’ve got a pretty cool CSM business club, where we have 20 local businesses that put into the club as well, and we have various things like social media shoutouts, to circulate their businesses to the players and the fans. So, it’s really cool to have people from local businesses come to watch our games, and it’s because of that support, that we’ve been able to not charge the Saturday players to play for the club. And that’s with thanks to our sponsors. The primary ones being Sam’s Property Consulting, Rose Court Chambers, London Building Maintenance, Anglian Self-Storage and Pestech 24/7.

We’re at a point now, that if we did charge the players to pay to play, then we’d probably lose those players, and I’d completely understand that. We’re genuinely living in a day and age, where people have a choice to either pay to be physically active, or to pay for bills or food. That’s a really crazy situation that we’re in, in society. So if we can remove one of the barriers (costs) which stops people from being physically active, then we not only retain a good set of players, but we’re also helping them, as they as players do so much for us. Going on to some more recent highlights as a club, I think that the run that we went on earlier this season where we went seven games unbeaten, was kind of unprecedented for us at the time. We were desperately searching, despite being close in matches to getting the win, to getting that win, which never seemed like it was going to happen. And then one win happened, and then we went on this run. We only drew one game in that run of seven games unbeaten, and that was to Kit Out London, a team who I think will stay up this season.

Winning 6-2 against Rapid Chingford was our biggest win of the season so far, and so I’d also put that win up there, in standout recent memories. Also, beating Lymore Gardens 1-0 in December was so important to us, and it was a tough, tough game against them. Also, winning 3-1 against Sporting Hackney, before that Lymore Gardens match, was a turning point for us as a team.

Who has been in your opinion, the toughest team that CSM London have played, since you’ve been the chairman of the club?

Anees: There’s a lot of good teams, but I’ve got to put FC Baresi right up there. I think that of all of the teams that we’ve faced at this level, that FC Baresi are just such a quality and professional team. They look like they’re ready to be at the higher levels of non-League football. FC Baresi, slowly but surely, are three or four nil up against you, and we wonder how we were 4-0 down, as we thought that we were doing well against them. However, it’s the movement that they have off the ball, and it’s defensively how they are, and it’s just a really, really good football side that they have this year. That’s a credit to them, because they were close to promotion last year, and at the end of that season they actually moved on a lot of their players, and that actually raised eyebrows with us as well. However, we went onto realise why they did it, as it was a different looking Baresi side, and that professionalism is what has set them apart as the front runners in the division this season.

I’d also put Chadwell Heath Spartans up there as well, as one of the most difficult sides that we’ve faced. As every time that you come up against one of Aaron’s sides you know how they’re going to play, but there’s not much that you’re going to do to stop it, because when they are on their day they will keep playing their football, which is incredibly effective. And Aaron has really got that style of football to work this year. It’s a tried and tested way of playing football, but those footballers are so well drilled and disciplined, and they’d run through a brick wall for their manager, and that’s a credit to those at the club. However, FC Baresi would he the toughest team that we’ve faced.

What are your hopes/aims for the remainder of this season for CSM London?

Anees: I think that primarily it is to try and get into the top half of the league. We are currently just four points off of Frenford Development, albeit we’ve played one game more than them. And because of our win against Petrocub on Saturday, Frenford are now in our sights. So getting into that top half of the table has to be our target, but secondly we must not forget that we’ve been in a relegation scrap for most of this season, and that one unbeaten run that we went on shouldn’t make us forget that. So we’re certainly not forgetting about that goal of not getting relegated, especially with the results in the league from teams around us, so we can’t get too ahead of ourselves.