There was an air of disappointment as the curtain came down on Enfield Borough’s second season. A campaign that promised so much was seriously derailed around the Christmas/New Year period and despite some good displays towards the latter stages, the consistency of performance was not there to see “The Panthers” be in the end-of season promotion shake-up.

Being only one year old and new to the division, Borough took their opposition by surprise by winning their first four league matches and topping the table at the beginning of September. A 5-2 win at Winslow United was particularly notable, but the resounding home defeat at the hands of Ampthill Town indicated that there were ways to derail the “Borough Express”. Another worrying tendancy first appeared in the away game at lowly Hatfield Town where a two-goal lead was thrown away in ten minutes of defensive madness.

Borough entered a national competition for the first time on September 9th with their F.A.Vase tie with Canning Town. With little knowledge of their opponents, Borough swept the East London visitors aside 4-2, only to draw Woodbridge Town in the subsequent round. Both clubs play at step 10, but Woodbridge were unbeaten in the league so far and a much more established club. In one of the finest performances of the season, Enfield came back from losing an early goal to dominate their opponents in a 6-2 win, Jamiah Plentie-Lawrence outstanding in his “quarter-back” role, spraying excellent passes to all parts of the pitch. Next up were Newmarket Town, riding high in a division one step above Borough and with a history stretching back over 140 years. Their physically imposing team posed a different threat to their hosts, but having finished the ninety minutes on level terms, the younger, fresher legs of the Borough players took the game to Newmarket who had no answer. There was a first goal for debutant Bruno Tavares as Borough progressed to a meeting with Berkhamsted Town, fellow Spartan South Midland League members, sitting top of the division above Borough and unbeaten. A difficult match in prospect, but Borough had shown that reputations counted for little with them. Sure enough they matched Berkhamsted all the way – twice they fell behind, twice they managed to draw level, the last time in the closing seconds of normal time. The added thirty minutes saw Borough squander decent chances to take the lead before the visitors finally secured victory with two late goals. The spoils belonged to Berkhamsted, the plaudits to “The Panthers.”

Their next match saw ten goals shared equally with London Lions in the Division One cup with the game being lost on penalties, a remarkable achievement without a recognised goalkeeper between the posts. Borough recovered from the twin disappointments with a run of four successive league victories to maintain their position amongst the title challengers. However with Christmas approaching, the wheels came off the promotion bandwagon. Five consecutive defeats, littered with defensive howlers, saw Borough lose contact with top sides. It looked as though that run would continue as Enfield reached the interval trailing lowly Broxbourne Borough by 3-0. Whatever was in the half-time cuppa, it worked as a Tage Kennedy hat-trick was followed by a last-minute winner from Plentie-Lawrence to show that the spirit that had appeared to be missing from the team was still burning bright. Seven days later Kennedy notched five goals in a staggering 8-4 triumph over Hatfield Town while North Greenford United were subsequently knocked out of the Middlesex Charity Cup. To illustrate the side’s inconsistency, the next fixture was a 5-0 defeat at Ampthill Town – definitely a bogey team in the making.

Around this time, news broke that Tage Kennedy’s outstanding form had earned him a trial at league One Charlton Athletic. The fact that he was still able to play for Borough was an added bonus and even with the prospect of a career in professional football within his grasp, his commitment to the club never wavered. But keen to show his blossoming potential, Tavares suddenly hit the goal trail with great regularity. A hat-trick against Wodson Park was an illustration of a player who lives to score goals, but who had started to develop a much greater all-round awareness.

March 21st 2018. Borough created history. Southall had not lost a league match all season and once more Borough found themselves trailing at the break. Fielding a squad of sixteen including eleven teenagers and with 39 year-old coach Ade Wale making his first start of the season, who could have predicted that Kennedy would take the match to the hosts and with his third hat-trick inside eight weeks seal the three points for Borough. Southall took revenge by winning the return match three days later, but no one could take away what Enfield had achieved. London Lions succumbed to a Solomon Nwabuokei treble before the club embarked upon another run of four consecutive league defeats. This, combined with an honourable Middlesex Charity Cup loss at the hands of National League South side Hampton & Richmond Borough, meant that the club played out the closing weeks of the season with nothing to play for but pride.

But Enfield Borough don’t do boring football – they certainly don’t do clean sheets!!. The goals continued to flow, never more so than when a listless Bedford side were put to the sword in a club record 8-0 win, Tavares providing half the goals while Wale’s effort was the most celebrated. The clean sheet was the team’s first for twenty-three games. Ten points were harvested from the last four home matches before the season was concluded with a low-key loss at Wodson Park.

The most worrying development was the news that the club would no longer be playing their home games at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium. However these problems have to be overcome and arrangements have been put in place to play at Wingate & Finchley’s Maurice Rebak ground for the next campaign. There will be more changes before the 2018-19 season commences, but the ethics by which the club is run will remain unchanged as will the style of play, for which we should all be very grateful.