Bostik Blog: Joining the James Gang

Witham Town took on Heybridge Swifts, in front of Sky Sports and joined by an audience of 407. The attraction wasn't only the football, and Jim Purtill wasn't an outlaw.


Local derbies are always big events, but for Witham Town they are even bigger events when they are played on Friday nights. This recent innovation has proved very popular with the public. There are plenty of midweek fixtures during the season, but Friday night football has a unique atmosphere. Tuesdays and Wednesdays can be unsettling evenings, haunted by the beckoning spectre of a normal working day that will start a few hours after the final whistle. Friday nights are different. The weekend has already begun and it’s showtime.

The higher Friday night attendances show that the public like the idea and the timing encourages a new range of spectators to attend. Supporters, players and officials of other clubs can see an extra game without missing one of their own clubs’ fixtures. Managers and players of Witham youth teams are out in force. The attendance is swollen by a selection of familiar groundhoppers, local journalists and amateur communicators. Some are bloggers, some are vloggers and some are just oggers.

It could be said of course that most Bostik League North games are local derbies. The division was created for a geographical reason and local is a relative term. There are so many clubs in relatively close proximity that you could reach a lot of them in a 45-minute drive from Witham; including Brentwood, Canvey Island, Maldon, Bowers & Pitsea, Tilbury, Romford, Aveley and Grays. There could be more, especially if I am doing the driving. Essex could be termed the derby county. Tonight’s opposition was Heybridge Swifts, based only six miles away. These two clubs are old adversaries and this is one of the biggest games in both calendars, but in truth this is not one of football’s more bitter rivalries.

Cometh the hour (and a half), cometh the man!

Cometh the hour (and a half), cometh the man!

One senses a mutual respect between these clubs, partly born of an unspoken recognition that they both live in the shadows of bigger outfits. Witham Town is a self-contained, solid but prosaic entity and they would not claim to be one of the more fashionable clubs in the league. Heybridge, a pleasant village perched close to the backwater of the Blackwater estuary seems an incongruous venue for a football club. Traditionally, both clubs have seemed perennial outsiders and they attract a similar idiosyncratic following. Both clubs are used to being underrated and even in good times, they struggle to obtain respect from more prominent rivals, even when their results deserve it.

Despite the lack of edge to the rivalry, this is a fixture that neither management team wants to lose. The proverbial local bragging rights are up for grabs and seasons tend to be defined by how things go in the local derbies. The return fixture will take place three days later at Heybridge and this added more bite to the occasion.

Whatever happens between now and early May, this has been a landmark season for Heybridge Swifts. Like all clubs, the Swifts have had their ups and downs in recent years, but when they are good they are very, very good. And they are good now. Their league record before this fixture of 45 points from 27 games and a goal difference of 29 speaks for itself. A few days ago there was the small matter of a 9-1 victory over Romford.

Swifts’ league record this term has been overshadowed by their cup exploits. They fought their way through the FA Cup preliminary and qualifying rounds to reach the First Round Proper before bowing out to Exeter City in front of 3,004 people. A shock first round FA Trophy victory over Hampton & Richmond Borough was followed by an exit at Maidstone, watched by 1,276. There is no doubt that this is the best Heybridge side for quite some time.

Witham Town v Heybridge Swifts

Witham Town v Heybridge Swifts

This seems light years away from the end of last season, when the Swifts were only minutes away from relegation. You do not have to be a rocket scientist like Iain Dowie to recognise the degree of ‘bouncebackability’ that this entailed. The Dowie-created word that entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 defines the resilience that the Swifts have shown this season to re-establish themselves as a powerful force.

Witham Town have had a decent season so far. They improved a lot after a modest start and put together an unbeaten away record that lasted from 23rd September to 5th February. This included some excellent performances, particularly a 3-0 victory in a faultless display on Boxing Day when the underdogs were Barking. February proved a difficult month for Witham and consecutive away defeats at Bury, Mildenhall and Grays lowered their colours. A victory over a local rival would provide a welcome boost.

So far, so normal. But the preparation for this contest and the eventual outcome were overshadowed by something very unexpected and only possible in the new world of social media. Physics was never one of my strengths at school but I seem to remember something about Newton’s Fourth Law. When least expected, an ordinary event will have extraordinary consequences. Enter James Beardwell, the self-styled superfan of Witham Town and The Voice of non-league football. For more 11 years he has been following the club with a-level of verbal support that seems to defy the biological limits of the power of human lungs. Never in the field of football has one man sung so much and so loud for so long.

James has long been a local legend and last season he was Isthmian League Fan of the Year. He rose to national prominence following his appearances on the Channel 4 TV series The Undateables. He is now engaged to be married and undateable no more; in fact he meets far more women than I do. His erstwhile status led to a memorable chant from inflatable-wielding Harlow Town fans a few years ago: “We’ve got inflatables, you’ve got undateables”. James also puts a video log of his experiences at each game on the internet. It makes compelling viewing. One man and his vlog.

Neither inflatable nor undateable!

Neither inflatable nor undateable!

In the away fixture at Grays on 17th February, James sang throughout the game. This was James doing what James does. He was filmed by a lady who uploaded a video of him onto social media. The sequence of events after that is bewildering. The video gripped the public and attracted positive comments from people all over the country. Sky TV, the BBC and ITV took note. James conducted a live interview on ITV Anglia News with one million viewers. One million people. That’s roughly one million people more than the average Witham Town home attendance. Meanwhile the video was going international. Elliott Ronto, Witham’s Australian midfielder was receiving messages about it from his friends in a land Down Under. Then it was reported that James had been seen in the USA and Canada. It quickly turned into something like the hunt for Lord Lucan. There were reported sightings here, there and everywhere. Latvia. Libya. Luxembourg. Luton. This promoted massive interest in this fixture.

Long before the kick-off on Friday the clubhouse was full of people. When the turnstiles clicked into life, it was like opening the sluice gates and watching the flood. The turnstile operators were kept busy until 15-20 minutes after kick-off. The attendance was 407, the highest of the weekend anywhere in the entire Bostik League apart from Guernsey. All 100 programmes were sold and the catering and bar staff worked heroically to meet the apparent endless demand.

Last season this fixture attracted more than 300 people and it is impossible to know how many visitors attended just to see James. His popularity was never in doubt though. The Sky TV camera crew talked of nothing else. All night complete strangers were taking photographs of him and selfies with him. Jesse James was shot while hanging a picture on his wall. This was a return of the James Gang, but the shooting was done with camera phones and the pictures were going onto the walls of Facebook.

Match reports can be seen elsewhere but in brief it was a keenly-contested 1-1 draw with both sets of fans contributing to an excellent atmosphere. A 90th minute Witham equaliser added to the drama. It was a good game and a great occasion.

Lord Lucan’s whereabouts remain a mystery. How one Witham man singing became an instant worldwide phenomenon is also a mystery, but we all know his whereabouts. On matchdays James is always singing behind the goal.

If you visit Witham Town next month, next year or in years to come, he will be there.

Lucan you will see him.

Where next?

Charity begins at...Wingate and Harlow Harlow announce friendly and charity appeal- for tomorrow- Wingate and Finchley showed their generosity on Saturday

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