Biggleswade Town - Langford Road

Biggleswade Town FC

Langford Road

Biggleswade

Bedfordshire

SG18 9JT

Biggleswade Town's Website and Twitter

Biggleswade's Website and Twitter

Ground: 86

Date: Saturday 24th August 2019

Biggleswade 4-0 Yaxley

FA Cup Preliminary Round

Attendance: 124 (official)

Biggleswade Town - 5 Facts

1) Biggleswade Town were founded in 1874 as Biggleswade, first changing name to Biggleswade & District before settling on the current name at some point. In 1902, the club became founder members of the Biggleswade & District League, winning the title at the first attempt and twice more before World War 1.

2) In 1920, the club joined the Northamptonshire League (which became the United Counties League in 1934). They remained here until World War 2, after which they joined the Spartan League before returning to the United Counties League in 1951. After four seasons, the club transferred to the Eastern Counties League, but again returned to the United Counties League in 1963.

3) The club remained in the top division of the United Counties League until 1976, when they finished bottom and were relegated to Division 1. After finishing 3rd in the 1979/80 season, the club joined the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division. They suffered relegation to Division 1 in 1983 but returned to the Premier Division in 1987. After this, they remained at that level until the 2008/09 season when they won the league title to earn promotion to Division 1 Midlands of the Southern League.

4) The club spent four seasons at Step 4 and twice finished in 4th to compete in the play-offs: in the 2010/11 season, they lost to Daventry Town in the semi-finals, while in the 2012/13 season they beat Godalming Town and Rugby Town to earn promotion to the Premier Division, where they have remained ever since. Last season saw the club record its joint-best finish at Step 3 level, finishing 7th and narrowly missing out on a place in the play-offs.

5) In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 1st Round in the 2013/14 season, beating Wingate & Finchley, Chelmsford City, Leatherhead and Canvey Island before losing to Stourbridge. In the FA Trophy, the club reached the 2nd Round last season, beating Harrow Borough, Hendon, Gloucester City and Wealdstone before losing to eventual winners AFC Fylde. As for the FA Vase, the club made it all the way to the Quarter Finals in the 2008/09 season, beating Berkhamsted Town, Kentish Town, Wivenhoe Town, Croydon and Market Drayton Town before losing to eventual winners Whitley Bay.

Biggleswade - History

Biggleswade were originally the Under 18s of Biggleswade Town, but in 2016 they chose to break away and become their own team, groundsharing with Town and joining Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League. They won the title at the first attempt to earn promotion to the Premier Division. The 2017/18 season saw the club finish 5th in the Premier Division, and last season saw them push on and win the title to earn promotion to Division 1 Central of the Southern League.

In the FA Cup, this result seals a new record run for the club as they are now set to compete in the 1st Qualifying Round for the first time. This season will also be the club's debut in the FA Trophy, with an Extra Preliminary Round tie against Bedford Town. As for the FA Vase, last season saw the club reach the Quarter Finals, exactly ten seasons after Town did the same: Norwich CBS, Tring Athletic, Stowmarket Town and Windsor were beaten before the club lost to Canterbury City.

My Visit

Originally, when the league and cup fixture lists came out in mid-July, I was hoping that Mildenhall Town would beat Biggleswade in the Extra Preliminary Round, as this would mean two new grounds rather than one (with Yaxley visiting Biggleswade in the league on New Year's Day). However, this wasn't to be as Biggleswade won convincingly, so my visit to the ground was moved forward.

On the day of the game, I first left the house at around 10:30am to buy an additional drink and some sweets before heading back to finish preparing. Then, at 11:25am, I left again to walk down to the ground to get the Supporters' Coach, going slightly slower than normal due to the heat. Eventually, I arrived at the ground just over 25 minutes later, immediately taking a seat on the coach.

After a brief delay, the coach left just after 12:05pm, making slow but steady progress down the A1 towards Biggleswade. After a brief stop at Brampton services to pick up a couple of the players, the coach continued on its way, eventually arriving at the ground just after 1pm. 

We then headed into the boardroom and received a warm welcome from the Biggleswade chairman, before sitting down for tea and biscuits to pass the time (cake was also on offer at half-time, and I gladly had some). I was keeping an eye on the Norwich score throughout all of this, but as our kick-off approached I started to lose interest in that, even more so after Chelsea took the lead again midway through the second half.

At around 2:15pm, some of us headed out into the sun and I took the opportunity to do my circuit of photos while the ground was still largely empty. Once this was done, I stood in the shade of the main stand with other Yaxley fans, popping back into the boardroom a couple of times for team news and to escape the heat. During the match, most of us moved over to the far side to stand in the shade, moving to whichever end Yaxley were shooting towards in each half.

Biggleswade's start to life at Step 4 had proven difficult, so I was hoping we could capitalise on that to progress to the next round of the cup. However, with a few first team players missing I was slightly concerned about how we would fare.

Here's my match report on a terrible Yaxley performance, easily our poorest (that I've seen, at least) since Kidlington away last season:

The first half-hour of this match can be best described as uneventful, with both teams failing to make the ball stick up front and hence being unable to produce any chances at all. The only threat either team could provide was from set pieces, which were also few and far between for the most part. However, Biggleswade gained the advantage in the 37th minute when a hopeful long ball over the top saw us give away a penalty: Dalton Bettles' header to Aaron Butcher was weak and the attacker picked up the ball, with Butcher diving and bringing him down in a desperate attempt to stop the attack. Alex Marsh stepped up to take the penalty and calmly chipped over Butcher to score.

The first half was poor - we failed to produce a meaningful chance and gave away a penalty and goal from almost nothing - but Biggleswade hadn't been that great either, so we had hope that we could make the comeback. However, this hope only lasted eight minutes into the half, as Biggleswade doubled their lead through Lawrie Marsh after he rose highest to head in from a corner. Things then got even worse three minutes later when defender Cameron Baldock-Smith was sent off for a two-footed challenge and gave away a penalty: as before, Alex Marsh stepped up and chipped over Butcher to score. Biggleswade's fourth came in the 68th minute through what looked like an own goal, but has officially been given to Sean McMonagle. The rest of the game saw Biggleswade dominate without doing anything meaningful, seeing out the game without having to work very hard at all.

To be blunt, this Yaxley performance was unacceptably bad, the lack of fight, leadership and overall quality being concerningly reminiscent of our 6-1 defeat away at Kidlington last season. The first half wasn't great, but it's the second half that was more concerning: a few key players were missing (two to holidays and one to a suspension), but that doesn't excuse the complete lack of fight and desire shown in the second half. However, it does raise a concern that we lack any sort of strength in depth this season, with one or two of the young back-up players looking hopelessly out of their depts. We'll also need more tactical flexibility than we showed here, as we made no changes until it was already too late, even though it should have been clear by half-time that the tactical system was not working.

An immensely disappointing FA Cup exit for the second season running, but there's not much point dwelling on it, with the two teams meeting again in the league on Monday. Instead, all we can do is move on and hope to put it right in that home match on Monday.

So, a terrible result (in my 350th match watched) that really put a downer on the whole day. However, the hospitality from the Biggleswade chairman was excellent so it wasn't all bad as a day out.

Naturally, the coach trip back was more subdued than normal, but the actual journey wasn't any more difficult (other than waiting around until 6pm for all of the players to be ready to leave). We got back to our ground just before 7pm and I was given a lift back home, arriving in the house five minutes later.

Up next is Didcot away next Saturday, but after that is completely in the dark now, as North Leigh won their cup tie (meaning our visit there on the 7th is going to be postponed). I'm looking at a few options to allow me to get one more groundhop in before I go back to University, but I'll update more on that with next week's blog entry.

The Ground

Langford Road is another good new ground, having only opened at the beginning of the 2008/09 season. The most impressive feature of the ground is the large 300-seater main stand on the near side of the ground, though this is the only covered seating at the ground.

Other than this, there's an additional two areas of cover in the form of small Arena terraces: one of these is on the far side between the dugouts, while the other is behind the far goal (though not directly behind it as is often the case). The rest of the ground is open hard standing, and with an overall capacity of 3,000 there is still plenty of room to expand should Town rise to Step 2 in the near future.

Photos

St Neots Town - Rowley Park

St Neots Town FC

Rowley Park

Kester Way

St Neots

Cambridgeshire

PE19 6SN

Official Website

Twitter 

Ground: 85

Date: Tuesday 20th August 2019

St Neots Town 2-5 Yaxley

Southern League Division 1 Central

Attendance: 203 (official)

St Neots Town - History

St Neots Town were founded in 1879 as St Neots, spending the majority of their early history in the Biggleswade & District League. In 1924, the club changed name to St Neots & District, before joining the Bedfordshire & District League (which later became the South Midlands League) in 1927. The league title was won in the 1932/33 season, and four years later the club moved to the United Counties League.

After World War 2, the club rejoined the South Midlands League, before becoming founding members of the Metropolitan League in 1949. After two successful seasons in this league - a title win in their first season and a 4th-place finish in the second - the club rejoined the United Counties League for the 1951/52 season, entering its Division 1. After five consecutive bottom half finishes, the club moved to Division 1 South of the Central Alliance. Around this time, the club changed to its current name.

In the 1960/61 season, the club rejoined the Metropolitan League, this time finishing as runners-up. They remained in this league for a further five seasons before returning to Division 1 of the United Counties League in the 1966/67 season. After three top-three finishes (2nd, 1st then 3rd), the club transferred to the Eastern Counties League, believing it to be a stronger league. And so it proved, with the club finishing in mid-table in their first two seasons before finishing fifth-from-bottom in the 1972/73 season.

After this, the club returned to the United Counties League, this time joining the Premier Division. They remained in this league for the next fifteen years, finishing as high as 4th in the 1976/77 season but struggling in the bottom five in their final few seasons. At the end of the 1987/88 season, mounting debts forced the club to fold, but they returned two seasons later, initially joining the Huntingdonshire Junior League.

Four consecutive promotions saw the club return to Division 1 of the United Counties League for the 1994/95 season, before winning it at the first attempt to return to the Premier Division. Progress slowed somewhat after this, with the club remaining in the Premier Division for the next fifteen years. In this time, the club mostly finished in the top half, but it wasn't until the 2009/10 season - when they finished as runners-up - that promotion seemed like a possibility.

The 2010/11 season saw significant amounts of money spent by the club as they stormed to the Premier Division title, earning promotion to Division 1 Central of the Southern League. This too was won at the first attempt, with the club earning promotion to the Premier Division. After a couple of respectable mid-table finishes, the club almost won another promotion in the 2014/15 season when they reached the play-off final. However, they missed out as Truro City beat them 1-0.

After this successful campaign, the club found themselves struggling to avoid relegation, finishing 20th in the 2015/16 season and 19th the following season. Things seemed to have improved after a 12th-place finish in the 2017/18 season, but midway through last season the club was forced to slash its budget to survive. This saw the club finish third-from-bottom to return to Step 4 for the first time in eight years.

In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 1st Round in the 1966/67 season, beating Ely City, Desborough Town, Rushden Town and Wisbech Town before losing to Walsall. In the FA Trophy, the club reached the 3rd Qualifying Round in the 2014/15 season, beating Ilkeston and Darlington before losing to AFC Sudbury. As for the FA Vase, the club have twice progressed as far as the 5th Round: in the 2001/02 season, they beat Stowmarket Town, Wembley, Romford, Melksham Town and Rushall Olympic before losing to Durham City; in the 2010/11 season, they beat Felixstowe & Walton United, Burnham Ramblers, Epsom & Ewell and Gresley before losing to King's Lynn Town.

My Visit

This was always going to be one of the new grounds I visited with Yaxley this season, so long as the fixture list put it at a time when I was at home rather than University. As it turned out, it was put in as our first away game of the season, so after finding that out I asked my dad about it at Luton Town, and he was happy to take me to the game.

On the day of the game, there were no issues with the weather, but as it was an evening game I decided I would take a jacket out with me as the temperature was bound to notably drop once the sun went down (and so it proved, with me ultimately wishing I'd taken a slightly thicker jacket than what I did).

After having an early shower and early dinner, my dad picked me up at around 6:30pm and we made quick progress down the A1 towards St Neots. We arrived at the ground half an hour later, parking in the nearby school car park due to the main one being closed. Being on the Yaxley complimentary list, I got into the ground for free, while my dad paid £7 (excellent value for Step 4 football, to be fair).

As we entered the ground, we bumped into one of my dad's coworkers (something he wasn't entirely happy about) and they chatted for a bit while I took a few photos. We then moved around the ground for me to do as much of a circuit of photos as the ground layout allows, stopping to talk with other Yaxley fans and the chairman on the way. Once that was done, we stood at the far side of the stand while awaiting kick-off, moving across once it became clear we were shooting at the near goal. In the second half, we stood behind the goal in the terrace.

At this early stage of the season, it's never easy to know what to expect, especially when coming up against recently-relegated opposition like this. For our part, we'd lost in the last minute at home against recently-relegated Halesowen Town (who are said to be overwhelming favourites for the title), while St Neots drew against the third recently-relegated side in Bedworth United. I was hoping to see a response after Saturday's promising performance, but with St Neots seeming to be in transition I had no idea what result to expect.

Here's my match report on a match which saw us run rampant against an inexperienced St Neots side despite not necessarily being close to our best:

After Saturday's last-minute defeat, we flew out of the blocks at the start of this match, going straight on the attack and taking the lead after 5 minutes: a throw-in was nodded down by Charley Sanders in the box, with Tom Waumsley pouncing to tap-in. After some more bombardment of the St. Neots box, we doubled our lead in the 12th minute: Ross Watson headed in from a corner, with a defender getting a slight touch in his attempts to stop the goal. It should have been 0-3 to us three minutes later, but Tom Waumsley wasted a golden chance, shooting tamely at keeper James Philp after intercepting his poor pass.

We lowered our intensity after this, gradually allowing St Neots to grow into the game as a result. However, due to some poor decision-making and finishing in the final third, they struggled for a while to create meaningful chances, even as they took more and more of the possession. Their first clear-cut chance came in the 27th minute, an audacious long-range shot from Prince Mutswunguma forcing an excellent save out of Aaron Butcher. However, even with their poor finishing, the amount of possession we were granting St Neots - particularly in the midfield area - was always going to come back to bite us, and so it proved when the home side pulled one back in the 35th minute: a free kick was played into the box and one of our defenders got a touch on it, but this just saw the ball fall perfectly for Sam Goode to tap-in. 1-2 at half-time.

The second half saw St Neots continue on the front foot, with our midfield continuing to sit deep and leaving St Neots space to attack. Early in the half, there was a mass brawl after a terrible tackle on Joe Butterworth, with the referee inexplicably only giving out one booking after everything calmed down. In any case, we extended our lead against the run of play in the 55th minute: John-Paul Duncliffe played an excellent early cross into the box and Waumsley was in the perfect place to shoot and score. This should have calmed us down and allowed us to retake control of the game, but St Neots caught our defence napping and responded immediately, Mutswunguma shooting beneath Butcher to score.

After a quieter fifteen-minute period, we began to take control of the game again, with a couple of substitutions in the 70th and 75th minutes improving our overall play. In the 76th minute, Waumsley had another excellent chance after a Dan Cotton cross, poking narrowly over the bar in front of goal. However, the referee judged that Cotton had been fouled inside the box while making the cross and pointed to the penalty spot. After a couple minutes delay, Cotton stepped up to take and calmly converted. The rest of the game saw us dominating proceedings and attacking quickly, resulting in our fifth goal in the 87th minute when Watson volleyed inside the box.

Overall, despite the margin of victory, I feel somewhat hard-pressed to call this an excellent performance. This is because, outside of the opening and closing fifteen minutes, we struggled to retain possession and were frequently overrun in the midfield. Fortunately, St Neots were profligate in front of goal and our defence did well to hold them out, but there's certainly a few things for the manager and coaching staff to think about going into the Biggleswade double-header this Bank Holiday weekend.

Overall, while a few aspects of our performance weren't fantastic (the midfield sat far too deep for most of the match, for instance), there's no disputing that it was an excellent result so early into the season, not least because it was the joint-largest away win I've seen Yaxley pick up in my four years following the club.

On the way back, as happened this time last year when we visited Bedford Town, we had to contend with road closures, diverting through Godmanchester due to parts of the A1 being closed. Fortunately, this only added around five minutes onto our journey time, and I was back indoors by around 10:20pm. Upon getting back, I first updated my records before writing up my match report, not finishing that until 11:30pm (it may be less coherent than usual as a result).

Up next is the FA Cup game at Biggleswade Town this coming Saturday, before we visit Didcot Town in the league the following Saturday. The next groundhop after that will depend on what happens in the FA Cup on Saturday, so I'll update accordingly in the next blog entry.

The Ground

Rowley Park is a relatively new ground, having opened as recently as 2008. And it's a good one compared to most new builds, with cover on three sides of the ground and no Arena stands to be seen. The only seated stand is on the near side and provides seats for 250 people, while there's an additional area of standing cover on this side by the near goal.

Behind each goal is a covered standing terrace extending the full length of the pitch. Each of these contains three steps of terracing, so you could probably get around 500 people in them (although it would be very tight). There's no football furniture on the far side of the ground, and nor is there any room for any.

The ground has an overall capacity of 3,500 and, having been used at Step 3 for several seasons recently, is certainly good enough for this level. I would imagine it's not too far off being good enough for Step 2, though I imagine more seats would be required were the club to ever reach that level.

Photos

Holbeach United - Carters Park

Holbeach United FC

Carters Park

Park Road

Holbeach

Lincolnshire

PE12 7PT

Official Website

Twitter 

Ground: 84

Date: Saturday 10th August 2019

Holbeach United 2-0 Fakenham Town

FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round

Attendance: 100

Holbeach United - History

Holbeach United were founded in 1929 and initially played in local leagues before joining Division 2 of the Peterborough & District League in 1936. They won promotion to Division 1 in 1938, before finishing as Division 1 runners-up in the 1945/46 season to earn promotion to the United Counties League. When the league gained a second division for the 1950/51 season, the club were placed in Division 1.

In their five seasons in Division 1, the club always finished in the top half and finished as runners-up in the 1953/54 season. After finishing 3rd the following season, the club applied for a place in the Eastern Counties League. This application was initially unsuccessful, but they were eventually accepted after a club resigned from the league to open up another vacancy.

After seven seasons of mixed success in the Eastern Counties League - finishing as high as 5th and as low as 14th - the club moved up to the Midland League for the 1962/63 season. However, this move was short-lived as the club finished second-from-bottom and dropped back down to Division 1 of the United Counties League. The club finished as runners-up in their first season back, but as the 1970s began (and Division 1 was renamed the Premier Division) the club's fortunes began to tail off somewhat. Other than finishing as runners-up in the 1973/74 season, the club languished in the bottom half for the rest of the decade, even finishing bottom in the 1977/78 season.

The 1980s were another mixed decade for the club, finishing in the bottom-half for several seasons but also winning the title in the 1989/90 season. The 1990s were similarly inconsistent for the club, finishing as low as second-from-bottom on two occasions but also finishing 4th in the 1994/95 season, but the early years of the new millennium were excellent for the club: after finishing as runners-up in the 2001/02 season, the title was won for a second time the following season and a 3rd-place finish followed in the 2004/05 season.

Six seasons of bottom-half finishes followed this successful period, but since the 2011/12 season the club have consistently been in and around the top 6 of the league (with the exception of the 2013/14 season, in which the club finished 11th). The 2012/13 season saw the club win the title for the third time, though the club opted not to take promotion and have remained in the Premier Division ever since.

The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 1st Round in the 1982/83 season, beating Long Eaton United, Rushall Olympic, Moor Green and Corby Town before losing to Wrexham in a tie played at Peterborough United's London Road ground. In the club's five FA Trophy campaigns, they twice progressed to the 2nd Qualifying Round, doing so on the second occasion (the 1971/72 season) by beating Thetford Town before losing to Cambridge City. As for the FA Vase, the club have twice progressed as far as the 5th Round, most recently in the 2014/15 season when they beat Blackstones, Gorleston, Huntingdon Town, London Colney and Thurnby Nirvana before losing to Erith & Belvedere.

My Visit

The first FA Cup weekend is always one of my favourites of the season (not least because it is typically my first opportunity to see competitive football in a season) and after last season's enjoyable visit to Stowmarket Town, I had decided to always try and tick off a new ground in the Extra Preliminary Round at the bare minimum (I'd ideally go more beyond that, but I can't guarantee it due to an increasing range of options as the season fully gets underway). 

So, for this season, I went and looked for options as soon as the draw was made. Initially, my choice for the weekend was Thetford Town and their game against Rothwell Corinthians, but as seems to happen every time I want to visit them, the game was moved from a Saturday 3pm kick-off (in this case to a Saturday evening kick-off). As I'd be relying on the train to get to and from the game, that change was less than ideal and once again delayed my visit to their ground.

After that, I had another look through the list of cup ties, noting down a few that caught my eye before checking whether they were still taking place on the Saturday or not. Eventually, that process left me with two options: either this game or Desborough Town. As per the norm when my mum is giving me lifts to a game, I left the final decision to her and she eventually decided on this (as she wanted to go into Spalding for some shopping).

On the day of the game, it was sunny but windy and we set off just before 1:30pm, making swift progress into Holbeach. This led to me being dropped off at the ground at around 2:15pm, heading in and paying £7 for admission and £1 for a programme. I then did my usual circuit of photos (or as much of a circuit as the ground's layout allowed), before taking a seat in the main stand to await kick-off.

With Holbeach at Step 5 and Fakenham at Step 6, the home side were favourites to win this tie, at least on paper. However, they'd had a strange start to the new campaign, losing 5-0 at home to Loughborough University in their first game before coming back from 2-0 down at half-time to win 2-3 away at Boston Town in midweek. As for Fakenham, their start to the season had been indifferent, so there wasn't much to gauge there. Still, the FA Cup always has room for shocks and upsets, so it was by no means a foregone conclusion.

Here's my report on a FA Cup match that ultimately proved fairly predictable, but was still a reasonable watch despite the wind's best efforts:

Holbeach immediately started on the front foot with two chances in the opening five minutes of this tie: first, Jack Smith won a 50/50 outside a box and passed to Will Bird, who curled a shot well over from just outside the box; the second chance saw Jonny Lockie ride a tackle into the box before shooting low, with Fakenham keeper Tom Coombe saving with his legs. The home side continued to push and had another chance in the 9th minute, Ryan Oliver somehow getting a shot away whilst surrounded by defenders, with Coombe saving well. Two minutes later, Fakenham had their first decent chance, utilising the wind to play a deep free kick into the box, with Ben Darby getting on the end of it with a tame header. Despite that brief respite for the away side, Holbeach continued to control the game and push to score, with Oliver having another excellent chance in the 14th minute: a free kick was played to the far post and looped over Coombe but not in, with Oliver attempting to tap-in at the near post but blocked by defenders.

In the 20th minute, though, Holbeach's domination finally yielded results as Jack Smith scored: a Fakenham corner was cleared and quickly turned into a counter-attack, with a cross-field pass from Oliver giving Smith the space to shoot from outside the box and score. After this, Holbeach calmed down and became less aggressive in the attack, opting to focus on controlling proceedings instead. To a degree, this gave Fakenham openings to get back into the game, but the home side had that extra bit of nous to maintain control and restrict the away side to half chances. Things then got worse for the away side when Holbeach doubled their lead on 39 minutes, Spencer Tinkler effortlessly poking a shot under Coombe to score. 2-0 at half-time.

Other than a frantic opening five minutes, in which Holbeach attempted to make full use of the wind and extend their lead, the second half was much quieter than the first, with Holbeach content to control the match against a Fakenham side who were trying to come back but simply lacked the quality to break through. Still, with Holbeach dropping another gear from the first half, Fakenham started to impact proceedings and create a few chances of their own: the best of these came in the 54th minute when a Ben Darby through ball set George Whitmore through to shoot first time, with Ricky Drury calmly saving the effort. The rest of the half largely consisted of Fakenham attempting to push and either breaking through (albeit very rarely) or losing the ball and allowing Holbeach to counterattack, with most of these also ending unsuccessfully.

Overall, despite Fakenham's best efforts to get back into the match in the second half, the tie was virtually over by half-time, which meant that the second half wasn't overly exciting to watch from a neutral perspective. Still, the first half was reasonable entertainment even if it was very one-sided. It was also good to see that the wind didn't affect proceedings too much, with both teams keen to play the ball on the floor as much as possible. So, not a classic FA Cup tie by any means, but absolutely not a terrible one either.

So, even though the second half lacked any real excitement, this was far from the worst way I could have begun my 2019/20 season's competitive fixtures. I got picked up immediately after full-time and we again made quick progress on the roads, arriving back home at around 5:30pm. I then got to work on sorting my photos and match report, this time getting it all sorted before dinner.

With results elsewhere, my FA Cup groundhop after St. Neots on the 20th will see me heading to Biggleswade Town's ground, with Yaxley taking on league rivals Biggleswade in the Preliminary Round. Depending on what happens there and elsewhere, I may have a groundhop in place for my birthday, with Yaxley's visit to North Leigh currently rearranged for that day. Of course, if either club progresses to the 1st Qualifying Round, that will be postponed, but it's a decent option in case that doesn't happen.

The Ground

Carters Park is a better-than-average Step 5 ground, one which is probably good enough for Step 4 in terms of football furniture. There's cover on three sides of the ground, with only the far side lacking any cover (or any room to really add any). Behind each goal is a small area of covered standing, each of which looks to be able to hold 50-100 people.

On the near side is a larger area of covered standing, though this is somewhat overshadowed by virtue of being directly next to the smart 200-seater main stand. This mostly provides decent views, but the solid sides mean that it is impossible to see either corner flag on the near side (unless you sit directly at the front of the stand, though even then I'm not sure you'd be able to see the corners).

The ground currently has an official capacity of 4,000, though the record attendance was 4,094 for an FA Cup game against Wisbech Town in 1955. As I said at the start, this likely has sufficient football furniture for Step 4, though would need more for anything above that. However, there isn't much room for expansion on the current site.

Photos