Eastenders

Barking  0  Margate  0

FA Trophy – First Qualifying Round

Sometimes, even the big things slip gently under the radar.

Today was a massive case in point, my plan was never to go to Barking, and not only that, it wasn’t until I got home that I realised just where I’d been.

The rain was biblical and with a band sweeping South West to North East across the Country, it put paid to a ridiculous number of games taking place on grass pitches. I had three choices on my ‘A-List’, all on grass, all off, so I had to look on the ‘B-List’, which typically involves a 150 mile plus journey to somewhere in the South of England.

The weather forecast suggested that my safest bet would be the South East, and from Friday night through to Saturday breakfast time, I couldn’t make my mind up. I started with Brentwood Town early on Friday evening, but the more I thought about the more I was thinking I was going to play it safe and go 3G, so by bedtime I was going to AFC Sudbury.

Then when Saturday morning came, I looked again and began to think I might not need a 3G, so I looked at Barking, working on the principle that if the worst happened and it did get called off late in the day, I was only fifteen minutes from the plastic at Aveley. So that was it, Barking it was to be.

It was the worst journey of the season by some distance, I set off from home at 10.30am, to be held up on three separate occasions alone on the M1, twice in the Milton Keynes roadworks and then just before getting on the M25. The heavy rain wasn’t helping matters to be fair but as I got nearer to the smoke it had started to ease somewhat.

The M11 was a ball ache but largely because of the traffic heading to the West Ham United v Sheffield United game, whereas the last couple of miles was far from unbridled joy. Aveley in fifteen minutes, I really don’t think so! I finally pulled into the car park at 2.15pm, just shy of a four hour journey, thank you very much!

I’ll talk about the ground and the game first, and leave the club until last, simply because the history of Barking FC is perhaps the salient point here.

The Mayesbrook Park ground was first occupied by Barking in 1973 after departing their old Vicarage Field ground. It’s located to the East of Barking itself, half way to Dagenham, in a typical built up East end residential area.

The car park sits behind the goal just off of Lodge Avenue, and once through the turnstiles the small clubhouse is to the right hand side. Behind the East goal is very much the business end of the ground, with various portakabin and container type buildings housing the dressing rooms, offices, hospitality areas and such like. It does look like since being built in the early Seventies, little has changed, except for an area of terracing that spreads the width of the pitch, with a tall area of cover bang in the middle.

Behind the opposite goal is a small area of cover that stretches over the walkway, with a low roof, while the main stand sits on the South side of the ground, running from one end to just beyond the half way line. It’s split between one end seated, and one end terraced. The North side of the ground is just open standing.

The pitch was in superb nick, and I was hoping for an entertaining encounter between visiting Margate who sat half way up the Premier Division of the Isthmian League, and the hosts who were also mid-table in the South Central Division. Geographically they are more suited to the North Division, but as I always say, you have to draw the line somewhere, and arguably Barking got the short straw this time around. From reading the programme I was surprised to see this was the first time the two clubs had ever met which I found odd. But then again Margate are historically Southern League, and Barking Isthmian, so I suppose it does make sense.

To be truthful, the game wasn’t great, and I’m not just saying that because it finished goalless. The first half was pretty much bereft of any goal mouth action, although to be fair the second half was better with both sides creating a couple of decent chances, but poor finishing and good goalkeeping was the order of the day. The two will go again on the Kent coast on Tuesday night. 110 paid to watch it with a good number having travelled from Margate, including a woman with a drum who spent the ninety minutes singing on her own!

So, Barking Football Club, when I did my research I was somewhat taken aback.

They were an Athenian League club before the War up until the early Fifties when they joined the Isthmian League, where they had a lengthy spell in the top flight barring a four season period in the mid-Seventies when they dropped to the First Division. The crowning moment came in 1978-79 when they were Champions of the Premier Division, the season before the formation of the Alliance Premier League, it was an incredible achievement given the calibre of some of the clubs they were competing against.

Had it been a couple of years later, Barking would have found themselves in the top tier of non-league football, but at the time of the formation of the APL, the Isthmian League clubs were not considered for membership, despite the league being theoretically on a par with both the Southern and Northern Premier League’s. It wasn’t until the 1981-82 season that neighbouring Dagenham became the first club to make the move.

By 1991 they’d been relegated to the First Division, and then by 1997 they were in the Second Division. In 2001 they merged with East Ham United and became known as Barking & East Ham United. This lasted five seasons, and after a fifth placed finish in the Southern League South Eastern Division, the club tragically folded.

A phoenix club re-appeared the following season, in the Essex Senior League, and by 2017 they’d won the title and were back into the Isthmian League, once again, where they remain today.

However, the league championship aside, the other thing that struck me was the clubs pedigree in the FA Cup. In the championship season of 78-79 they reached the Second Round, losing to Aldershot, while the following year that beat Oxford United in the First Round before losing to Reading.

In 1981-82 they reached the Second Round again, losing a replay against Gillingham, while in 1983-84 they lost once again in the Second Round, this time to Plymouth Argyle, who famously went on to reach the Semi Final that year. I remember that Plymouth run well, I was at the Baseball Ground that night for the Sixth Round Replay against Derby County when Andy Rodgers scored direct from a corner!

So, quite a history, and as I looked back through my records, what also came to light was the fact that I’d never ever seen Barking play, I’d seem the Barking & East Ham variation back in 2004 at Leighton Town, but never good old, plain and simple Barking.

Game aside, I was well pleased I’d chosen Barking above others on offer, otherwise it might have been some time before I got to know a little bit more of the history of one of East London’s most famous football clubs.