Biggleswade Town FC
Langford Road
Biggleswade
Bedfordshire
SG18 9JT
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
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