John Walker's Match Preview

Bugbrooke St Michaels

Bugbrooke St Michaels

Year founded: 1929 Chairman: Kevin Gardner Club Website: www.bugbrookesmfc.co,uk

Good Afternoon And A Warm Welcome To The Premier Plus Stadium To Our First Visitors In A New Season In A New League

After an absence of twelve seasons, it is back for our first match in the United Counties Football League.In that time the league has changed, expanded, and moved geographically further north and now has two Premier Divisions – one north and one south. We are to play in the south division and a quick look at its composition reveals that only five clubs are the same as we faced in the 2010/11 season. They are Cogenhoe, Desborough, Newport Pagnell, Wellingborough, and Yaxley. In addition to that quintet of clubs we have also played Bugbrooke, Daventry Town, and Eynesbury in UCL competition, which means that eleven of our league opponents will be new to us, although we have played two further UCL clubs –Godmanchester Rovers and Leicester Nirvana (the latter under the name of Thurnby Nirvana) in cup competitions.

This is to be Bugbrooke’s first visit to the Premier Plus Stadium although our two clubs did meet four times on our previous ground at the bottom of the estate. Our first meeting was in the year we reformed and moved to this estate playing in UCL Division One. Only two clubs beat us at home that season – Bugbrooke and St Ives Town and Bugbrooke were only team to record a league double over us that season winning 3-1 in the return fixture at Birds Close. After that first season things were different. Bugbrooke had three seasons in the UCL Premier Division between 1999 and 2002 and during that time our lads beat them four times (three times at home) drew once and lost once. Our last meeting here finished 5-1 in our favour with two goals apiece for Wes Byrne and Simon Claridge and a fifth for Jason Meeds. Last season Bugbrooke finished tenth in the league table winning 13 of their 34 league matches whilst in the league cup they defeated Heather St Johns in the first round before losing to March Town, after they had beaten that side in the FA Cup Preliminary Round. In the FA Vase Bugbrooke lost on penalties in a shoot-out away at Hillingdon Borough after a 1-1 draw. Our other previous meeting with Bugbrooke was in 1999 when we defeated our visitors 3-2 at home in the League KO Cup.

Previous league meetings of our teams:

P8 W4 D1 L3 goals for 19 goals against 8

Enjoy the match

John Walker