Aylesbury Vale Dynamos FC
Haywood Way
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP19 9WZ
Ground: 78
Date: Saturday 30th March 2019
Aylesbury 0-1 Yaxley
Southern League Division 1 Central
Attendance: 107 (official)
Aylesbury Vale Dynamos FC - History
Aylesbury were founded at some point in the 1930s at Negretti & Zamba, a works team in the London area. After World War 2, the club moved to Aylesbury and joined the Aylesbury & District League in 1954, changing name to Stocklake. After several years of success in this league, the club moved up to the Wycombe & District League and remained here until earning promotion to Division 1 of the Chiltonian League in 1988.
After finishing as runners-up in Division 1 in the 1989/90 season, the club moved up to the Premier Division. They finished as runners-up in their first season in the Premier Division (as well as in the 1996/97 season) and generally had strong finishes in the league. After league restructuring ahead of the 2000/01, the club opted to move to Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League instead. That same summer, the club merged with Belgrave and changed name to Haywood United.
After one season in Division 1, it was renamed Division 2 and the club finished as runners-up to earn promotion to the new Division 1. A respectable mid-table finish in the 2002/03 season was followed up with the Division 1 title the following season to earn promotion to the Premier Division. After finishing 3rd in their first season in the Premier Division, the club again changed its name, this time to Aylesbury Vale.
After this name change, the next four seasons saw the club slip down the league table, before changing to the current name ahead of the 2009/10 season. This saw a major improvement in the club's fortunes on the pitch, as they won the league title to earn promotion to Step 4 for the first time, joining Division 1 Central of the Southern League. This is where the club have remained ever since, finishing as high as 3rd in the 2014/15 season (and losing 2-1 to Bedworth United in the play-off semi-finals) and as low as 2nd-from-bottom last season.
At the end of this season, regardless of league position the club will be demoted to Step 5, due to their inability to satisfy FA ground grading criteria regarding changing room sizes. For next season, the club are merging with local youth side Bedgrove Dynamos and once again changing name, this time to Aylesbury Vale Dynamos.
In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 4th Qualifying Round in the 2009/10 season, beating Langford, Leighton Town, Erith Town, Wingate & Finchley and Chesham United before losing to Wealdstone. In the FA Trophy, the club have never progressed beyond the 1st Qualifying Round but have reached that stage in all but three of their campaigns in the competition: most recently, they reached that stage last season, beating Molesey before losing to Harlow Town in a replay. As for the FA Vase, the club's best run saw them reach the 3rd Round in the 2008/09 seaon, beating Alton Town, Harrow Hill and East Grinstead Town before losing to Leiston.
My Visit
After a few consecutive weekends in which my initial groundhopping plans didn't pan out, it was nice to go into this weekend having a concrete plan that had no chance of changing (well, the weather could have been an issue, but ultimately proved not to be as it was hot and sunny for much of the week).
My last week of University before Easter break was fairly standard, with the only exception being that I got picked up by my mum on Friday to head back home. The journey home was a nightmare, but in this case it was due to the M1 rather than the usual culprit (the M25); having passed several signs to Aylesbury along the way, I was seriously concerned about the coach heading down the M1 and getting stuck in traffic for ages.
On the day of the match, we headed to Mulberry Tree Farm to have a cooked breakfast, before carrying out a couple other odd tasks. After this, I was dropped off at the ground to wait for the arrival of the coach. For whatever reason, the coach was late and ended up leaving the ground at 11:45am, rather than 15 minutes earlier as had been the plan.
To pass the time on the way, I read a book on my Kindle, but paid some attention to where we were going in the hope that we would avoid the M1 entirely, which fortunately we did. This meant that the journey was reasonably quick and easy, with the coach reaching the ground at 1:30pm. The only issue at that point was figuring out where to park it due to how miniscule the ground's car park was (I'm not sure where it did park in the end, but I'm sure something was figured out).
At this point, those of us who had travelled with the players on the coach headed into the boardroom for some pre-match hospitality, which consisted of tea and biscuits while the Fulham - Man City game was on the TV. I stayed in here for an hour or so, in which time the conversation ranged from Aylesbury's demotion, our Supporters' Player of the Season, our starting line-up, our own situation and numerous other topics.
At just after 2:30pm, I headed out into the sun to do my usual circuit of photos, before standing with the other Yaxley fans awaiting kick-off (and moving to stand with them at each end during the match).
Taking the table and recent form into account, I was hoping that we could go on to win this game, as doing so would move us even closer to mathematically confirming safety at Step 4 for next season. At the same time, I knew it wouldn't be easy given Aylesbury's recent good form.
Here's my report on a match which was scrappy and not the most exciting to watch, but saw us do enough to earn us a vital three points:
After a late kick-off (the match didn't start until 3:06pm, for whatever reason), we made the better start, almost immediately going on the attack and putting Aylesbury under significant pressure. After 11 minutes, this paid off; Dan Cotton ran down the left wing and floated a cross into the box, which was headed towards Joe Butterworth who then volleyed into the bottom corner from outside the box. We almost doubled our lead roughly ten minutes later, Tom Waumsley nodding the ball into the box to Charley Sanders, who poked just wide from close range under significant defensive pressure.
We had another great chance in the 34th minute, a Cotton cross reaching the head of Waumsley but looping wide of the far post. In amidst all this, Aylesbury attempted to counter with route one tactics, but their only real chance came from a cross in the 20th minute, which Aaron Butcher had to stretch to punch clear. That aside, they struggled to break through our defensive three and create any clear-cut chances. 0-1 at half-time.
Aylesbury made a much better start to the second half and, in doing so, quickly pulled us down to their level: rather than playing the ball on the ground as we had done in the first half, we too started utilising route one tactics. While this turned much of the second half into a scrappy slug-fest, a couple of defensive mix-ups around the hour mark almost gifted the home side an equaliser: in both cases, there was confusion over whether Butcher was collecting the ball or not and the Aylesbury strikers almost capitalised, with last-ditch clearances required in both cases.
Apart from this, there was very little happening in the second half, partially due to the route one tactics but also due to several niggly fouls from both sides: this meant that the match barely flowed at all, so chances for both sides were largely limited to set-pieces, with neither side capitalising at all. For the last few minutes, we did our best to manage the game and did so in fairly comfortable fashion to secure the win.
Overall, this game was absolutely not a classic, but it was definitely a crucial result for us: it's another three points on the board, which for all intents and purposes secures our status at Step 4 for next season (it's not mathematically confirmed yet, but the 12-point gap over North Leigh is almost certainly enough with five games left). On top of that, we picked up another clean sheet, which is always a nice bonus to top things off with (especially with two young defenders in our back three today).
MOTM: Ross Watson (a dominant defensive performance, stopping dozens of attacks in their tracks, making crucial blocks and marshalling the younger defenders too)
Post-match hospitality, as is quite common in this league for whatever reason, was a jacket potato with some chilli, which was a decent way to round off the day. Before we had to leave on the coach again, I was able to head into the bar to watch the first 15-20 minutes of Norwich's match against Middlesbrough.
The journey back was perhaps slightly quicker than the way there, but not by much. Due to the match not finishing until 5pm, though, the coach didn't leave until 6pm so we didn't get back to our ground until 7:30pm. Once we did, Sean was kind enough to give me a lift back home, saving me a 30-minute walk.
As I said last week, Dunstable Town will be my next groundhop and Yaxley away game in two weeks time, and I will again be on the coach for that. As for other groundhopping plans, I'm going to start looking at options for the 20th later today, while I've found a game at Kintbury Rangers on the 4th of May that should be this season's final groundhop.
The Ground
Haywood Way is a decent ground with a reasonable amount of character. There are just the two areas of cover, one of which is a seated stand with 150 or so seats on the near side of the ground. This contains the tea bar at the back, which looked like it provides a decent range of hot food and drink options. On the same side of the ground is some uncovered seating in the form of a few benches, but these are quite far away from the pitch.
The other area of cover is an area of covered standing behind the near goal, which could probably provide cover for up to 200 people if required. That aside, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, with raised fencing panels used to prevent people from watching for free from outside the ground. The pitch was one of the most bobbly I have seen this season, but did not cut up at least.
In terms of football furniture, the ground is sufficient for Step 4, but the issue for the club is the changing room sizes; they are only a metre or two too small, but to enlarge them would require a complete rebuild, which would not only be very expensive but also highly impractical while the works are underway.
Photos
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