Next up – Leighton Town
Saturday, 15th November at Wodson Park, SG12 0UQ.
Pitching in Southern League, Divison One (Central); kick off 3.03pm.
Admission
Admission (card preferred but cash accepted) – Adults £10, Concessions £5, under 14 free with paying adult otherwise £2.50.
Printed programme on the gate for £2.
Tickets can be purchased in advance at https://warefc.co.uk/product/ware-v-leighton-town/
Three Up
The game will kick off at three minutes past three, a time set as part of the Trident Leagues’ support for the National League’s 3UP campaign. This is calling for an amendment to the regulations to allow “two-up” to become “three-up” to the Football League. They are asking for this change in time for the end of the 2025-26 season.
Our opponents
Formed in 1885, Leighton Town moved around a number of leagues including the Hellenic, United Counties and Spartan before joining the Isthmians for 1992/3. A later transfer to the Southern League followed but eventual relegation saw them spend seven seasons in the Spartan South Midlands League. During this period they enjoyed FA Vase success, reaching the quarter final on three occasions before then achieving promotion back to the Southern. Meanwhile, their best performance in the FA Cup has been to reach the fourth qualifying round in 2007/8, losing at Havant & Waterlooville.
They play in red and white stripes with change colours being all blue. I guess that means we will see two teams in stripes which confuses some people but we’ve done it in the past without problem.
Form guide
What’s to be said? Town are top of the division by a clear nine points after sixteen league games. They are unbeaten and have only dropped points in four games. Those at Leverstock and Biggleswade, and at home to Hitchin Town and Welwyn Garden City. They are the highest scorers in the division with 39 goals, three more than us though we have played a game less. If you’re looking for a weakness, they didn’t make much progress in the FA Cup or Trophy so are beatable but then again that freed them up to concentrate on the league.
This is perhaps not the fixture Ware want with a number of crucial injuries affecting selection. These have already caused several recent morale sapping results and now we face the runaway league leaders. Some players are back from injury and the match day programme seeks to strike an optimistic tone but as one comes back to fitness so another takes a knock and is out. Meanwhile Ben Nightingale has been recalled by Dagenham & Redbridge but we have been able to get Max Woodford back from Stevenage. That’s the uncertain time we are passing through but Paul Halsey will be building up the side for a good performance so look out.
Previous Meetings
Our first meeting was due in November of the 1939/40 Spartan League season with the return at Buryfield set for January of 1940. Something we’ve been reminded of in the last week got in the way and we didn’t actually meet until 1952/3 when we scored a league double. They were Leighton United at that time but by the time they were back to being Town we lost twice to them in the Amateur Cup. Three friendlies aside (two draws and a win) there have been a further 16 league games since then with both sides winning five. Of the six draws two were in last season’s meetings, both 1-1 with Johnny Allotey scoring in both games. We lost this season’s opener at Leighton by 4-1, Caiden Remy-Dee getting our goal.
Commentary
Pete and Symon will be at the game if you can’t make it yourself. They’ll be broadcasting commentary from 2.55 at https://90minuteslivefootball.mixlr.com/events/4663570
Match officials
Ensuring that we kick off at 3.03pm will be referee Conor Griffin. Helping him keep an eye on things are assistant referees Mitchell Bush and Connor Wood.
