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Don’t under-estimate Stevenage!
Spurs have never played Stevenage in a competitive match.
This is not surprising really, as the Hertfordshire club made their Football League debut in the 2010-11 season. The rise of Stevenage since winning the Conference in 2009-10 has been nothing short of meteoric, as they won promotion in their first League Two season, winning the Play-Off Final at Old Trafford last May against Torquay. Now they sit in the play-off places in League One.
Stevenage are in sixth place on merit, having just completed a fantastic league double over Sheffield Wednesday, who are fighting for an automatic promotion place back to the Championship. On Tuesday night, Stevenage completed a 1-0 win at Hillsborough with a Scott Laird header from a corner. In September, Stevenage completed only their second home win of this season over Wednesday, with an astounding 5-1 win.
Those who assume that because Stevenage are playing in League One, this will be a walk-over for Spurs might need to think again. Our hosts are a resilient, quite physical but skilful side, who are in great form. They have lost just one of their last 20 games, at home to Leyton Orient, on January 2nd. Any cobwebs they might have had due to the postponement of their last two home games were brushed away in that game at Hillsborough.
This is Stevenage’s first time in the fifth round of the FA Cup, but they have a history of a notable scalp or two. Last year for example, they beat Newcastle 3-1 to reach the Fourth Round of last year’s competition. This was a sweet, sweet occasion for Stevenage fans, who had seen their Conference side cruelly knocked out of the FA Cup in the fourth round by Newcastle in 1998.
In those days, a special stand was built behind the away end to accommodate the Geordie fans, and the home match ended 1-1, with Grazioli equalizing Shearer’s third minute goal. Newcastle won the replay 2-1, with Shearer scoring both goals, but the first has been proved not to have crossed the line after the use of technology.
After beating Newcastle last year, Stevenage were knocked out by Reading, but again, Stevenage got sweet revenge for that defeat in this year’s third round with a 1-0 away win thanks to Darius Charles’ goal. Charles is a player who was bought as a defender, but has often played up front for Stevenage.
Stevenage are a team that others love to hate, accusing them of uncompromising football, and of slowing the game down when it suits them by (allegedly) feigning injuries. Some of “Borough”’s astounding results this season tend to put that theory to the sword. Apart from that home pasting of Sheffield Wednesday, “Borough” beat Colchester 6-1 away, MK Dons and Rochdale 4-2 at home, and in the first round of the league cup, they were narrowly beaten 4-3 by Peterborough. The Borough element of Stevenage’s name was removed when they were promoted to the Football League, but they are still affectionately called “Boro” by many fans. In fact, you’ll probably hear it in their chants on Sunday.
We’ve already seen that Stevenage are a team with big match experience. They were the first team to win a competitive game at the new Wembley stadium (FA Trophy in 2007), and they won that Play-Off Final last May at Old Trafford. They also won the FA Trophy Final in 2009.
Stevenage are a team with current and past Spurs connections. We used to play our reserve matches at Broadhall Way, and every year played a pre-season friendly against them. My, I even saw Steffen Freund score a goal for us at Stevenage in the July 2001 Friendly match
Stevenage has had a football club in various guises down the years. In 1976 the previous incarnation, Stevenage Athletic, was wound up due to bankruptcy. Spurs’ legend Alan Gilzean had been manager there. Borough were formed and over the years worked their way up the non-league pyramid until they won the Conference in 1995-96, but were denied promotion to the Football League due to the unsuitability of the ground.
The current squad includes former Spurs Ronnie Henry and goalkeeper Chris Day. Ronnie (the grandson of Spurs Double winner Ron Henry) came through the Spurs Academy and I remember him making it as far as the bench for the first team at Old Trafford, but he never made a first team appearance. Ronnie is now a Stevenage veteran with 264 appearances in league and conference matches. Formerly a centre-back, Ronnie tends to play at right back these days. He skippered the side to that 2007 FA Trophy win, but fell out of favour at some point with Graham Westley after he returned to manage the club for the second time in 2008.
Westley has surprisingly left for Preston, but so far there has been no sign of that affecting the team, whose form has continued first of all under the caretaker leadership of club captain Mark Roberts, who is a powerful, strong and very effective centre-back. The new manager is Gary Smith, who has major league experience with Colorado Rapids, and was once on the Arsenal coaching staff. Smith’s father Roger was on Spurs’ books in the 60s.
The other notable current Spurs connection at Stevenage is 37 year old goalkeeper Chris Day, who was a Spurs Reserve in the days of Erik Thorstvedt, and never made a first team appearance. Chris has had a long career, and has been Stevenage’s number one for 4 seasons now.
Other players to look out for will be right winger Lawrie Wilson, striker Chris Beardsley and defender Scott Laird, who scored that winner on Tuesday night and has 7 goals to his credit this season. Midfielder Michael Bostwick also chips in with a goal now and again.
Harry Redknapp put out a stronger team than we anticipated in the last round of the cup at Watford. That team totally under-whelmed us with their performance against a Championship side that merited a draw at least.
Some fans think that we’ll field a relatively weak side at Broadhall Way for this televised game. I'd say we should not under-estimate Stevenage, and I have a feeling that we’ll see quite a strong side, and that we might need it too to get the win. We have a full week to prepare for the Arsenal game, so let’s start this one with a strong side, and bring on the bench once the game is secure. I’ll go for a 3-0, to Spurs of course!
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