Holbeach United FC
Carters Park
Park Road
Holbeach
Lincolnshire
PE12 7PT
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
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