Saturday 7th September 1996
FA Vase First Qualifying Round
Broadbridge Heath v Leatherhead
Programme Price: Not Stated
Thursday’s certainly do seem to come around very quickly but not that I’m complaining, it means it’s almost the start of the weekend and another opportunity to write a programme review. Just like previous weeks, I have chosen this programme completely at random from my collection and it turns out that I have made a good pick. This programme is excellent with the only slight downside being that although it states this is a FA Vase game, it doesn’t actually state which round it is. Not that this is too much of a problem as after a quick search on the internet, I was able to ascertain that this was a First Qualifying Round game. I was also able to find out the result, a resounding 9-3 victory for Leatherhead! Another piece missing in my opinion is the history of the visiting team, Leatherhead, other than that, it’s a good read. Right, let’s get into it.
With page 1 being the front cover, page 2 is a full-page advert with page 3 being the programme editorial. It is stated that this was a historic occasion as it would be the first ever meeting between Broadbridge Heath and Leatherhead.
Page 4 provides a list of who was who back in 1996 at Broadbridge Heath FC. The chairman at the time of writing was Roger Weekes with the first team having a joint management duo of Tony Beckingham and Kevin Moyse.
Pages 5 and 6 both feature adverts with page 7 featuring ‘A Word From Tony Beckingham’ who states that the team had started the 1996/97 season in disappointing fashion and he was hopeful for better times ahead.
Page 8 provides two match reports for recent games played by Broadbridge Heath in the Sussex County Football League Division Two. Both games were away from home and both ended in defeats, firstly 2-1 at Crowborough and the following week, 2-0 at Eastbourne United.
Pages 9 and 10 both feature adverts with page 11 showing results for all games played by Broadbridge Heath in the 1996/1997 season, this included the first team, reserve team and the youth team. Going back to Tony Beckingham’s comments on his team’s disappointing start to the season, it is clear to see why he felt that way as the first team had played five games and lost all of them at the time of writing!
Page 12 shows the Sussex County Football League Division Two standings as of 6th September 1996. It probably comes as no surprise when I inform you that the table showed Broadbridge Heath at rock bottom of the 18 club division.
Page 13 provides another match report, this game was a home game for the Bears and resulted in them being on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline against Bosham FC. The following two pages show the team line up’s for the game against Leatherhead with the referee named as Martin Newell from Edenbridge.
Page 16 features two adverts with page 17 providing a Broadbridge Heath Reserve Team round up. It is written that several youth team players had appeared for the reserves already in the 1996/97 season due to the fact that the first team had a lot of injured players. This meant players who would normally be in the reserves had been called up to first team duty.
Page 18 provides results from the Sussex County Football League on Saturday 31st August 1996 and is followed by full page adverts on pages 19 and 20.
There is news about the youth team at Broadbridge Heath on page 21 which features a report from the team’s win at Crawley Down Village by 3 goals to 1. This is followed on page 22 by all of the latest news at the club which includes recent results, players’ injury updates and a whole lot more.
Pages 23 and 24 both feature full page adverts with page 25 providing a list of fixtures in the Sussex County League and the FA Vase respectively. The following page gives details of forthcoming fixtures at all levels for Broadbridge Heath with the programme being completed by two pages adverts.
All in all, this was a decent read and I look forward to reviewing another programme next Thursday
