Tooting and Mitcham football ground have a lot to answer for!

Hey everyone,

Yesterday my son's had a joint birthday party at The Hub in Tooting and Mitcham football club grounds and I'm not impressed about the service they provided or the lack of it!

I phoned Tooting and Mitcham grounds to see if they did parties there and the receptionist didn't seem to know what she was doing and after waiting for what seemed like a decade! She answered they did. She told me that it was £12.50 a child and the party would consist of an hour play with a professional coach in an all weather pitch then 45 minutes in a party room. Me and my husband considered it and decided we would go for it.

We went to the grounds to book the party and to pay, when we got there the receptionist was so unprofessional, She didn't even know what she was doing most of the time and everything we asked was an inconvenience to her. On the form we had to fill out, it asked if any of the children coming had special needs, my nephew has cerebral palsy so I informed them of this. It also asked if we wanted a hot buffet or cold, there was no information on what the food would be other then it was cold or hot! I filled out the form and returned it to the receptionist, she looked briefly at the form and said that we could have the minimum of 10 children and that we could have the maximum of 20 children. 10 children equaled £125! We paid in full for 10 children and were told if anymore children came on the day we could pay for them then.

I asked the receptionist if I could see the party room, eventually she found a young girl to show us the room. She took us upstairs to see the room which was underneath a soft play apparatus, I asked if they were allowed to go in to it and she said that they weren't and they was only to stay in the play room for 45 minutes. She acted like I had asked for the crown jewels! I was disappointed that they weren't allowed in the soft play as I felt that for the money I paid they could at least let them play.

When we went back down stairs she gives us a receipt and the invitations. I was gob smacked at the fact that the invitations were so rubbish!

This is the invitation! it was just printed on paper! I was so shocked at the sight of them and embarrassed to send them out. For the amount of money I paid I was expecting a little bit more then a basic invitation which a child could have designed!

My son was excited by the party so I went ahead hoping that the actual day would make up for the poor service and the rubbish invitations. How wrong was I! So we sent out the invitations and got our RSVP's, we sorted out the party bags, cake and decorations all ready for the day.

The day finally came, the party was due to start at 4:00pm so we decided we would get there about 3:30pm so that we could put up the decorations we had and would be there to greet the guests.

We arrived and were told by the receptionist (who was only about 12!) That the receptionist who deals with parties wasn't there and to take a seat in the bar area, so we did and waited and waited, eventually my husband went to the reception to see if she was there and she was! There was no mention that she was there! If my husband hadn't taken the initiative to go to the reception we would have been sitting there with no notion that she was there!

When we finally spoke to the girl organizing the party (and I mean girl! she must have been about 15!) I asked her if we could go up to the party room as we had banners to put up and she said that she would take us up there in a moment, we never ended up going there before the party so the decorations had to be scrambled up at the last minute. 

We ended up standing in the foyer while the guest arrived, we was standing around like idiots waiting for this girl to give some direction. I looked like an idiot not knowing what was going on and unable to answer any parents questions as I didn't know anything myself, the girl just stood there talking to her friend. Eventually she disappeared outside and I was told by another mum that we had to follow her, she never said anything she just walked out! She expected everyone to just know what to do!

We followed her to an outside astro-turf pitch, when I booked the party I was told that it would be on an all weather pitch? Now I don't know about anyone else, but an all weather pitch to me means a place with a roof on it at least! The coach was really good and he did play with the kids and they seemed to enjoy it but the problem was their was no organization, even the coach had no idea what was going on. The girl disappeared leaving two jugs full of juice just sitting on the side of the pitch, she didn't come up to me and tell me they were there and that we were to serve the kids ourselves, it was a matter of them coming to us and asking for a drink and having to scramble around to serve the kids!

They also hadn't made any special arrangements for my nephew who was left out of playing, in the end I lost my temper and my husband helped him play as it wasn't fair for him to be left out! I was so angry as to why they would ask if there was a special needs child coming to the party if they wasn't going to make any arrangements for them to join in! The girl turned up to tell us that the food was ready and to go to the party room, again she just walked off and expected everyone to know what was happening so again I had to round up everybody.

We got to the party room and the food was chips, pizza, cocktail sausages and chicken nuggets all on platters on the table, again the girl disappeared leaving me to serve the kids their food and drink! We were left in the room with the kids bored and asking to play in the soft play. There was no party planner who would organize games, see if we needed anything, nothing! we were left to do everything by ourselves! The reason I had gone for something like this was because of the fact that I'm not well, its stressful for me to run around serving and entertaining the kids. If I had wanted to do that, I would have hired out a pitch and organized a party myself for less then the money we paid! For the same price at a local soft play area we could have gotten two hours of them in the soft play, party room with a party planner organizing everything, individual meal plans, a dress up character and party bags already made instead we were left with us really just hiring out a hall. My nephew dropped a cup of juice and it was the coach who helped us by getting a mop and bucket! It wasn't his job to, it was the girl's job as the person in charge to help us if we needed anything. There was no party planner to organize things or play games with the kids.

The girl ended up coming back at the end of the party while I was making sure that we had not left anything behind and she was huffing that we hadn't left the room!! I was shocked and angry that I had paid all that money to be treated that way! She had no right to be huffing like we were an inconvenience to her!

In short they are rude, disorganized and over priced! I have no idea what my money paid for? The food was so cheep that it properly didn't cost anymore then a fiver! There were only two birthday banners in the room and the coach couldn't of cost much for an hours worth! I had paid for a service that I didn't recieve and I will be complaining and asking for a refund! 

I would say if you are thinking of booking a football party for your kids, don't go to Tooting and Mitcham football club!

Thank you for reading! xxxx