Match Preview

Match Preview, by Steve Barton

After beating AFC Croydon Athletic in the FA Cup Preliminary Round Replay on Tuesday we travel to Tottenham on Saturday to meet Haringey Borough in the First Qualifying Round. The two sides have never met in competitive football. Herne Bay had dropped out of the Athenian League at the end of the 1973/74 season before Borough joined that competition three years later.

Haringey Borough was established in 1973 by a merger of Edmonton and Haringey Borough (formerly Wood Green Town) and was initially named Edmonton & Haringey. The new club took Edmonton's place in Division One of the Athenian League and adopted their current name after finishing bottom of the division in 1975/76. The league was reduced to a single division in 1977 and the club finished bottom of the league in 1981/82. When the Athenian League was disbanded at the end of the 1983/84 season, Haringey joined Division Two North of the Isthmian League. With many of the players and the management team leaving shortly before the start of the 1988/89 season, the club dropped out of the league, before joining the Premier Division of the Spartan League for the 1989/90 season. In 1990/91 the club won the London Senior Cup. In 1995 they were renamed Tufnell Park, taking the name of one of the clubs that had merged to form Edmonton, but reverted to the Haringey Borough name the following year.

When the Spartan League merged with the South Midlands League in 1997 to form the Spartan South Midlands League, the club were placed in Premier Division South for the 1997/98 season; a seventh-place finish saw them placed in the Premier Division for the following season. Haringey were relegated to Division One at the end of the 2006/07 season, which had seen them finish bottom of the Premier Division. However, they were Division One runners-up the following season, earning an immediate promotion back to the Premier Division. At the end of the season they were transferred to the Essex Senior League. The 2014/15 season saw the club win the Essex Senior League, earning promotion to Division One North of the Isthmian League. In 2016/17 Haringey finished fifth in Division One North, qualifying for the promotion play-offs. However, they lost 5-4 to Maldon & Tiptree in the semi-finals. The club finished fourth in the division the following season, and after beating Heybridge Swifts 2–0 in the semi-finals, they won the final 3–1 against Canvey Island to secure promotion to the Premier Division. The 2018/19 season saw the club reach the play-offs at the first attempt, but they lost in the semis 1-2 at home to Tonbridge Angels.

Last season Haringey reached the first round of the FA Cup for the first time, going on to lose 1–0 at home to AFC Wimbledon, whilst Bay went out in the First Qualifying Round at Leatherhead. 35 places separate the two teams in the pyramid with Borough sitting second in the Isthmian Premier with five wins and one defeat from their six games whilst Bay are 14th in the Isthmian Division One South East with four points from a possible 12.

The winners will bank £4,500 with the losers receiving £1,500. The next round, the Second Round Qualifying, will take place on Saturday 21st September 2019. Haringey Borough play at Coles Park, White Hart Lane, London, N17 7JP. Their average home attendance this season from two games is 387.