Billericay Town

Billericay Town FC is a non-league football club from the commuter town of the same name in Essex, which is located twenty eight miles east of central London. The club were formed in 1880, playing in local league competition for their first eighty six years before becoming founder members of the Essex Olympian League in 1966.

In 1969-70 and then the following season, they were crowned as champions at the same time as moving into their New Lodge home ground, going on to become founder members of the Essex Senior League in 1972. This began a golden period in the clubs history under manager John Newman.

Billericay were crowned as champions in 1972-73, 1974-75 and 1975-76. As well as winning their third title, the 'Blues' also won the FA Vase at Wembley after defeating Stamford 1-0. They returned to another final the following season, this time drawing 1-1 with Sheffield below the twin towers, before winning the replay 2-1 at the City Ground in Nottingham.

A move to the Athenian League followed this feat, with Town winning the title in their debut 1977-78 season. 1978-79 saw the team regain their title as well as returning to Wembley where a Dougie Young hat trick helped see off Almondsbury Greenway to lift the Vase for the third time. This success led to promotion to the Isthmian League, where they were promoted to Division One at their first attempt in 1979-80.

Yet another promotion was sealed at the end of the 1980-81 season as Town reached the Premier Division. However, that was the end of the glory days for some time as a succession of managers came and went.

Towards the end of the decade, they had found themselves on the receiving end of two relegations in 1985-86 and 1987-88. After regrouping along with the appointment of John Kendall as manager in November 1989 proved a masterstroke.

The Blues went back up in 1991-92 and 1997-98 to find themselves back in the Premier Division at the turn of the millennium. The long reign of the successful manager ended in August 1999 when Gary Calder replaced him.

 

In the 2004-05 season with new owner Steve Kent at the helm and Justin Edinburgh as manager, Billericay lost to Leyton in the end-of-season playoffs in a bid to be promoted to the Conference South.

They failed once more at the same stage against Bromley in 2006-07. Edinburgh moved on, and after a spell which saw Brian Statham in charge, Craig Edwards took over as manager in April 2010.

 

Edwards assembled a successful team that went on to lift the Isthmian League title in 2011-12 and promotion to Conference South, before Kent put the club up for sale in July 2012. This move may have affected the field performances as Town were relegated back to the Isthmian League the following May.

December 2016 saw the arrival of Glenn Tamplin, a larger-than-life character who drew attention and controversy at every turn. He transformed the club by upgrading New Lodge and spent lots of money on the team with signings such as Jamie O'Hara, Jermaine Pennant and Paul Konchesky.

 

He decided to become manager to replace Edwards in March 2017 before Harry Wheeler was brought in to lead Billericay to the Isthmian League title in 2017-18. The chaos continued as Tamplin once again took charge before Dean Brennan oversaw a brief spell before Wheeler returned.

Tamplin departed to leave the rest of the board to pick up the pieces as O’Hara took over as manager. Ronnie Henry, Kevin Wilson, and Dan Brown all took turns as manager during the pandemic before the appointment of Jody Brown in October 2021. Brown returned in April 2022.

 

Billericay were relegated from National League South in 2022-23 leading to the arrival of new boss Gary McCann, with the team narrowly missing out on a playoff berth twelve months later.

Billericay Town will compete in the Isthmian League Premier Division in the 2024-25 season.

My visit

Billericay Town 1 Dagenham & Redbridge XI 3 (Monday 2nd August 2010) Pre Season Friendly (att: approx 250)

How times had changed. For a couple of years when I moved to London in 1999, this had been a normal Ryman’s League encounter. For this encounter Dagenham & Redbridge sent out their reserves as the first team were to start their campaign at Sheffield Wednesday the following Saturday. That was surely something all clubs could take heart from and aspire to?

I eventually found the piecemeal ground on the edge of town and got a warm welcome as I had a Boro polo shirt on. New Lodge had areas of covered terracing on three sides of the pitch, with the far side also containing some seating. 

The final entrance side was made up of some covering for standing fans, a small raised Main Stand, the clubhouse and elevated sponsors box and then the changing rooms. All areas in between were open hard standing with an occasional few steps of terracing.

The clubhouse was excellent and piped through the pre match music and PA’s from the rest of the ground. What an announcer/DJ they had. We were entertained with everything from punk, prog rock and heavy metal right through to brass bands. 

Apparently the bloke was a bit of a character in charge of the supporters club who at one half time interval announced the 50/50 winner and then played one long Kiss track through the entire break. An excellent inovation was that fans could pay a tenner and have your favourite ten songs played before the game to raise cash for the club.

I had a brief chat with the amiable John Still, the boss of the visitors, who said what a shame it was about Boro and he always enjoyed our games. He wished us all the best on our climb back.

The game itself was very competitive. Billericay’s league campaign didn’t kick off for a couple of weeks and apparently they were going to pick their final squad from the 25 who were playing pre season for them. Money was tight everywhere so players were desperate to find clubs around the M25 corridor. 

The home side gave as good as they got before going 2-0 down to a young and athletic Daggers team, rather against the general pattern of the game. They got back into it and could have drawn level before a late goal put the game beyond doubt.

I got a nice surprise as a local fan picked me out. I had let some of my contacts know where I was going, including Simon Cope and low and behold a good friend of his was there. Andy was also a Trust member of Boro despite living in Essex! 

We had a good chat and I got a lift to Shenfield station after the game, saving me plenty of time. All in all I'd had a good night at a club I would recommend if anyone ever found themselves in the area and finding themselves at a loose end.