League Season Starts at Home to Takeley FC

After a good victory in the FA Cup at Barking, Grays start their 2025/26 Isthmian League North (ILN) campaign at home to newly promoted Takeley FC.

Takeley earned their promtion to Step 4 by finishing runners up to Stanway Rovers in last seasons Essex Senior League and then beating first Barking and then Woodford Town, both at home and both 2-0, in the Playoffs. This will be Takeley's debut in the Isthmian League and we wish them well, after today obviously!

In a competitive Essex Senior League, Takeley would not have been an obvious choice at the start of last season, but deserved their promotion thanks to the best home record in the entire pyramid; 19 regular season home league games saw 18 wins and a draw followed by the play offs, both won at home. If that's not enough, they played 4 cup games at home and won the lot, giving them a home record of played 25, won 24 and 1 drawn. Their Full Vision stadium was certainly a fortress.

Top appearance makers last season were Jordan Westcott with 48 (12 goals), Coby Miles 46 (10 goals) and Charlie Allum 43. Their two top goalscorers were Jack Mitchell with 20 and Lanre Balogun 16.

Last seasons successful manager, Alex Martin, has moved on and has been replaced by his assistant, Kieran Amos. It appears nearly all of last seasons squad have been retained, so Takeley will have an advantage over those ILN teams who have seen a turnover of players in the close season. Their squad have continuity and know one another well.

Like ourselves, Takeley had a win in the FA Cup last Saturday, beating Crawley Green from the Spartan South Midlands League, at home by 5-2, with goals from Jack Mitchell (2), Coby Miles, Jordan Westcott and Olly Miles. The win sets up another home tie, this time with Bowers and Pitsea. Grays' reward for winning at Barking is our first visit in over 20 years to Hitchin Town. Please see our website for more details.

After today, Takeley have two challenging home league games to look forward to. Their first ILN game at the Full Vision Stadium is on 12th August against last seasons 4th placed team, Waltham Abbey. They face title favourites, Maldon and Tiptree, on 23rd August. If they were to win both of those games, their 100% home record would stretch to a whole calendar year, which would surely be a record.

Grays play again in the ILN on Monday evening at Redbridge, rekindling memories of our injury time win last season.

Normally, I have plenty to research about past meetings with our opponents. On this occasion, although our reserves and U23s have met regularly, the first teams have only met once. That game was in an FA Cup Preliminary Qualifying Round tie in 2012/13 played at Rush Green and decided in Grays' favour by a Jack West goal.

In terms of playing connections, the only player I can find who has played for both clubs is the aforementioned Jordan Westcott who made 8 appearances for us in 2021/22.

In the last two seasons our opening league games have seen a defeat at (then) big spending Enfield and a draw at Mildenhall Town, both newly promoted clubs. It is often the case that newly promoted clubs come into the new season still on a high from their previous success and ready to give 100% from the get go.
Every club starts level and these first games can throw up some surprise results.
Last season, in the first round of league games, Waltham Abbey lost to newly promoted Sporting Bengal and Tilbury lost to second season opponents in Ipswich Wanderers. The winners of those two games went on to be relegated and the defeated teams had highly successful seasons finishing 4th and 6th respectively.

So, this is likely to be a tight opening game. Remember, it's a marathon and not a sprint, so lets try to be patient, whilst getting right behind the boys from the first to the last minute.

Up The Ath!