Today I'm going back six years to 2016 and York City's National League fixture against Boreham Wood at Bootham Crescent in front of an official attendance of 2,169.
Boreham Wood? Where's that? Never heard of it! Well neither had I until 1987 when I joined GEC's Railway Signalling Company based in the Hertfordshire town which is actually more part of the suburban sprawl of North London than a town at all these days. It's located just off the A1M to the North of Barnet and the south of South Mimms services on the M25 / A1M exit. I take issue with the spelling of the town's name as used by the football club because I worked in Borehamwood for ten years (one word, not two) and Wikipedia lists it as all one word. The two versions of the name seem to be interchangeable and you can find signs in the area employing either spelling. In practice, well heeled locals living on the right side of the town would actually prefer not to have Boreham Wood or Borehamwood in their address at all, favouring nearby upmarket Elstree instead. Elstree is, of course, famous for being one of the major centres of the British film industry for many years and Elstree Studios are actually to be found in Borehamwood and are well known for being home to the Big Brother house and the set of Eastenders. One of the ladies that I worked with in Borehamwood could remember Harrison Ford booking a taxi from her office back in the day when she worked on the switchboard at a local cab company during the making of Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
But the football club calls itself Boreham Wood FC and uses BWFC on their club badge just to emphasise their preferred spelling. When I worked in the town between 1987-1997 the football club were unremarkable members of the Ishmian League so it was something of a surprise to me when they gained promotion to the National League's top division in 2015. Even more surprising has been Boreham Wood's on the pitch progress since then, knocking on the door of promotion to the Football League itself in recent years. The club, being in the heartland of Arsenal and Tottenham territory struggles for support and would not be an asset to the Football League if they ever achieved another promotion in my opinion. Irrespective of my views, they continue to punch above their weight and I defend to the end the right of any club to achieve success on the pitch especially if they deflate a few egos at supposedly "bigger" clubs along the way.
Meanwhile back at York, the previous season had been an unmitigated disaster with the loss of a coveted Football League place and a return to Non-League after only four years back in the 92. Despite steering the team into Non-League oblivion, (Mis)Manager Jackie McNamara retained the managerial hot seat for another season and, initially at least, looked to have stopped the rot gathering four points from City's opening two games before the visit of Borehamwood. On bright summers afternoon at Bootham, City gave a fairly good account of themselves and indeed looked to have clinched the three points in the 88th minute thanks to a Simon Heslop shot from the edge of the area after a corner. Sadly however, Borehamwood went straight up the other end and grabbed an equaliser in similar fashion with the goal scored by Ricky Shakes in the 89th minute.
Five points and undefeated after three games doesn't sound too bad but, thereafter, York went into freefall losing 6-1 at Gateshead and Guiseley amongst other embarrassments before McNamara was finally "promoted" upstairs into the CEO position enabling the club to bring back Gary Mills as manager. Disappointingly Mills found that he had been left with too much to do and the club suffered a second successive relegation come the end of the season. Small club Boreham Wood showed City how it should be done finishing the season in 11th position (out of 24) with another small club, Forest Green Rovers being promoted via the Play-Offs to join champions Lincoln City in League 2 the following season.
CRB Match No. 2109
Comments
Post a Comment