Devil in the detail - Biggleswade Town boss reflects on relegation
This time last year, Biggleswade Town were on the crest of a wave.
Promoted as champions from Division One Central of the Southern Premier League, there was widespread excitement as they prepared for a return to step three football.
Even the departure of the then joint-manager Danny Payne didn’t dampen spirits, as fellow boss Jimmy Martin took sole charge and with it the task of trying to build on what had been an incredible 2023/24 campaign which had also featured a strong showing in the FA Cup.
But fast forward 12 months and the Waders are now about to return from whence they came, the realities of the step up having been evident throughout the campaign as Martin’s side finished bottom of the table and had relegation confirmed by the end of March.
And whilst league tables rarely lie, the devil was often very much in the detail for the Waders, with several close games and a large number of late goals conceded that turned three points into one, or one into zero.
That in turn highlighted another deficiency which would prove crucial.
"The main thing we struggled with was finding a true goalscorer,” said Martin.
"The two most key positions in the team, for me, are goalkeeper and centre-forward. We have an outstanding goalkeeper in Jack Berman and there are seven or eight players in our side with an unbelievable work rate and desire to make things hard for the opposition.
"But we haven’t scored enough goals and that’s left us open to the kinds of situations that happened when it came to not winning games, or the manner of losing them.”
The stats make tough reading. When it comes to points gained in the last ten minutes of games, Biggleswade took just one. Yet the points lost thanks to goals conceded in the last ten minutes amounted to 16.
Biggleswade lost 11 games by more than one goal, but were narrowly beaten by a single goal in 13 matches. And if those fine margins weren’t enough, the Waders also missed seven penalties.
"It just showed the confidence levels within the side at times,” said Martin.
"We even tried having seven or eight different players taking penalties and that didn’t work.
"The bottom line was we didn’t have a cutting edge and despite me working tirelessly to try and find someone who would solve our goalscoring problems, it just didn’t happen.”
Player retention at times proved tricky, with the Waders’ best performers often picked up by sides elsewhere who identified them as useful perhaps for promotion tilts rather than a relegation battle.
Martin said: “Naturally if players are doing well, teams come knocking and if they’re offering more money then loyalty becomes a factor and you hope that player will want to remain if you adhere to any promises you’ve made to them.
"We lost Eddie Panter to Bedford which was disappointing but to give him his due he’s scoring goals at a side that’s top of the league.
"In fairness, I’ve still got seven or eight players that were here at the start of the season and I’m proud of that. There’s not much loyalty in football but if you show it to players, you often get it in return.
"Whether those players stick with us moving forwards will remain to be seen. Three or four are more than capable of staying at step three and in a competitive side, and I think one or two could even make the jump a level higher. That might sound ultra-ambitious given where we are but we’ve taken four points off Telford and made it hard for Bedford to beat us by one goal, while Kettering took 80 minutes to break us down and win 1-0.
“All three of those sides are in the frame for promotion so that shows how hard we were to beat.”
As for the future, Martin says he is keen to remain in place to help oversee a return to step three.
He said: “I’ve been a coach for eight or nine years and only had a break when Covid happened, and I’ve got to be as ambitious as I can be – I can’t be leaving three kids at home all the time without a desire to be going out to win.
"It’s been a tough year, but I’d love to be able to keep this group together and see them weekly after a win rather than a defeat and they’re more than capable of doing that at the level below – we’d have a strong claim to come back up.
"There’s no desire to go anywhere else. I’ve really enjoyed step three, even in the hard times, just because of the level and the infrastructures, grounds and fanbases of the clubs we’ve visited.
"One of the only negatives is that we’re now going back to a level we’ve already won but the expectations will be managed and the budgets of the kinds of clubs we’ll be up against will be factored in.
"So we will see how things go over the next few weeks and look forward to putting a team together that can challenge at the top end of the table.”