Wellingborough Town FC
The Dog & Duck Stadium
London Road
Wellingborough
Northamptonshire
NN8 2DP
Ground: 113
Date: Saturday 7th August 2021
Wellingborough Town 1-3 Newmarket Town
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Attendance: 99 (official)
Wellingborough Town - History
The current incarnation of Wellingborough Town were founded in 2004, two years after the original club folded. The original club were founded in 1867 and played as high as Division 1 of the Southern League before folding at the end of the 2001/02 season. The current incarnation spent its first season in the Northamptonshire Senior Youth League and they immediately earned promotion to Division 1 of the United Counties League for the 2005/06 season.
The 2005/06 season saw the club lose just one game all season to finish as runners-up and earn promotion to the Premier Division, where the club remained until this season's restructure split the United Counties League Premier Division into North and South Divisions. The club's first season in the Premier Division saw them finish 3rd, which remains their highest finish at this level to date.
Since then, the club have had inconsistent finishes at this level, finishing fourth-from-bottom two seasons after that 3rd-place finish, before then finishing 5th two seasons after that (the 2010/11 season). The last two completed seasons saw the club finish 14th in the Premier Division and they were 12th when the 2019/20 season was curtailed. As part of the restructuring of the non-league pyramid, the club were transferred to the newly-created United Counties League Premier Division South for the 2021/22 season.
The current club's best FA Cup run came in the 2010/11 season when they reached the 1st Qualifying Round, beating Kirkley & Pakefield and Haverhill Rovers before losing to Felixstowe & Walton United. The old club twice reached the 1st Round, losing at that stage to Bristol Rovers in the 1928/29 season and to Aldershot in the 1965/66 season. The current club have never played in the FA Trophy, but the original club progressed as far as the 1st Round in the 1971/72 season: they beat Skegness Town, Spalding United and Bourne Town before losing to Dartford. As for the FA Vase, the club reached the 4th Round last season, beating Haverhill Rovers, Woodbridge Town and Norwich United before losing to Anstey Nomads.
My Visit
After getting very little groundhopping done since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic last year, I was eager to get back into things at the start of this new season, with things getting closer and closer to normality by the day. And what better way to get started than with a match on FA Cup weekend?
As soon as the draws for the Extra Preliminary and Preliminary Rounds were released roughly a month ago, I went looking for two things: firstly, who Yaxley would be playing (home against either Mildenhall Town or Wroxham in the Preliminary Round); secondly, some of the more local ties to start drawing up a shortlist with. Given that I'd be asking for a lift for wherever I went on EP Round weekend, I decided to limit my choices to grounds within 50 miles, while also only looking for ties involving teams from different leagues (this ruled out several options that would have otherwise made the shortlist).
Eventually, I ended up with a shortlist of four options: this, Arlesey Town, Bugbrooke St. Michaels and GNG Oadby Town. I gave this list of choices to my mum a couple weeks ago to let her choose where I'd end up (given she'd most likely be driving on the day). Not long after I passed this list over, there was a change to it as I noticed that Baldock Town (who groundshare at Arlesey Town) had moved their home tie to the Sunday, allowing for a potential weekend double-header.
After a quick check of trains for that Baldock Town match - to make sure that it would be feasible on public transport so as to not ask for lifts two days running - I added that match to the list and removed Arlesey from the shortlist for Saturday. After that, the choice I expected was made and it was confirmed we would be going to Wellingborough Town for the Saturday. However, with there being a fair amount of rain during the week before the match, I was constantly eyeing social media for any potential news of a postponement (not that Wellingborough were much help in that regard, given they don't have an active club website or Twitter and only sporadically update Facebook).
When the morning of the match came, I did one last set of social media checks as I started to get ready and saw that Newmarket were making their way on a coach. This signalled that everything was going ahead as planned and we left at 1:45pm (giving me more than enough time to get lunch in before we left). Despite getting stuck behind some slow drivers in places along the way, we reached Wellingborough around 2:30pm and I was dropped off in the Starbucks car park directly across from the two Wellingborough grounds (Whitworth's ground is right next door to Town's).
After putting my raincoat on (just in case we got any of the forecasted rain throughout the afternoon), I crossed the road into the club park and took a photo of the club's pay hut before paying £7 for admission and a steep £2.50 for a 20-page programme. Upon entering the ground, I put the programme in my bag before beginning my usual circuit of photos, beginning on the dugouts side of the ground and looping around to behind the near goal last. Once that was done, I took a seat towards the right inside the main stand as I awaited kick-off, paying £2 for some raffle tickets when someone came around offering them (I didn't win, of course, but maybe someday I will).
Though the new season had only just begun, I did take a quick look at the league tables to see how the first league match or two had gone for both clubs, to try and gain some idea of what sort of expectations to have for this tie: Newmarket had won their first two matches and only conceded one goal in the process, while Wellingborough had suffered a 5-3 defeat against Potton United. Based on that, my pre-match prediction was that Newmarket would pick up a 1-3 win in a competitive encounter.
I didn't see any teamsheets around the ground, and Newmarket only posted their own on Twitter
Two minutes later, Wellingborough's number 9 had a good chance to double his side's lead with a left-foot shot from just inside the box, but he couldn't keep it down and it went over for a goal kick. In these early stages, the match was some real 100mph stuff as both teams punted the ball upfield to quickly go on the attack, though clear-cut chances were few and far between.
Wellingborough were narrowly on top in these early stages, but they almost gifted Newmarket an equaliser on the half-hour: James Hall robbed the Wellingborough keeper of the ball on the edge of the box, cut inside and crossed for another Newmarket player to shoot, but the shot was blocked on the line and cleared away. Though Wellingborough got a lucky escape there, Newmarket did manage to nab an equaliser just at the end of normal time when Jack Whiting crossed from the right wing to an unmarked Sam Gomarsall to place a shot past the keeper.
In contrast to their sloppy start to the first half, Newmarket started the second half very strongly and completed the turnaround in the 49th minute: Lewis Whitehead played in an excellent cross from the right wing and Hall was on the end of it with a powerful header. Having taken the lead, Newmarket now started to take control of proceedings by playing with more pace and purpose and leaving little space for Wellingborough to work with. This meant that there was less action to take note of for much of the second half, as the ball spent most of its time in the midfield third.
In the 81st minute, Newmarket's victory was secured when Hall scored his second of the afternoon: Gay launched the ball upfield and Hall managed to beat the offside trap and place a powerful shot beyond the Wellingborough keeper into the bottom corner. Four minutes later, Wellingborough had their best chance of the second half to get themselves back into it when, after a sustained spell of possession on the edge of the Newmarket box, the number 7 put a shot from the edge of the box over the bar.
Overall, this was a good match to get myself back into the groundhopping groove with, being competitive throughout and having plenty of key moments to take note of. Mind you, after the last 18ish months I think I'd have been happy with anything besides a drab 0-0; the important thing for me is I'm back travelling to new places to watch football, and oh how I've missed it.
After the full-time whistle blew, I made a quick stop in the clubhouse to use the toilet before getting picked up again in the Starbucks car park. We arrived back at the house around 45 minutes later and I got straight to work on sorting out my photos and writing out my match report before dinner. After dinner, I made a start on this blog entry by researching the history of Wellingborough Town FC, as I wanted to speed things up this morning so I could finish and get this uploaded before departing for the Baldock Town match.
Once this entry is finished and uploaded, I'll be ordering my train tickets to make my way to Arlesey for this afternoon's match. With a long walk between the station and ground (just over half an hour), I'm hoping theres's not too much rain in that part of the country today.
The Ground
The Dog & Duck Stadium is a good Step 5 ground, dominated by the large main stand on the side bordering the next-door ground of Wellingborough Whitworth. This contains seating for around 200 people, with a step or two of standing terracing at the back on each side (two steps to the right of the central press box, one step to the left). The stand is painted in the club's yellow and blue colours and features the club's initials on the back, giving it plenty of character. Despite supporting pillars, views from most seats in the stand are good, helped by the sides being open to the elements besides the necessary supports (only downside of that being that the rain can come into the stand at the right angle, as we found today).
Other than this, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, with minimal space for meaningful expansion. However, I understand that there used to be other areas of cover at the ground when AFC Rushden & Diamonds groundshared here, but they took those with them when they moved in with Rushden & Higham United.
The clubhouse can be found behind the near goal and a tea bar is positioned immediately in front of it. A club shop can be found next to the main stand as well. Besides this, the ground is well-positioned relative to local amenities, with a Starbucks, McDonald's and Domino's Pizza just across the road and a Premier Inn very close by too. A Tesco superstore is also within a five-or-so minute walk of the ground.
Photos
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