Stansted

Now, we’ve never met Stansted in a league match. Nor have we played the Blues – or the Airportmen – in the FA Cup, FA Trophy or FA Vase. And yet we have 12 competitive meetings to our name and we’ve only played two other clubs more often in cup competition over the years. So, what’s the craic with this club from the other side of the county? Well, it’s down to the Eastern Floodlit League – a midweek kickabout that we used to be part of. Oh, Saffron Walden and Royston were the other two clubs, if you were wondering.

Boro’ first took part in the Eastern Floodlit League during our United Counties League days. It wasn’t rare for us to put out our strongest team, for understandable reasons. By the time we knocked it on the head in ’92 after going up to the Diadora League Premier Division, we were fielding the yoofs and the stiffs more often than not. And that’s understandable too. In the end, we took 11 cracks at the competition and failed to win it. In six of those, however, we were paired with Stansted at the group stage and oh how the goals flowed…

The 1986-7 season was our most imperious when it comes to our record over Stansted. We racked up hefty wins of 5-2 and 7-1 in what was then called the Knights Floodlit League for corporate reasons – the latter is still our joint-eighth biggest win of all time if you look at it a certain way. In fact, there is no match between Stevenage (Borough) and Stansted on record in which Boro’ failed to score. And if we made it past the one goal, it was always three, four or more. Clean sheets didn’t tend to be a thing for either of us back then.