Vital Statistics

With nothing much to report on I thought I’d give you a selection of some useless facts about Boro’s season in 2007/2008.

• Boro finished in 6th position in the Blue Square Premier, they were only ever outside the play-offs spots 3 times this season.
• Stevenage’s average attendance at home was 2,251, the seventh highest in the Blue Square Premier. This was also a 5.9% increase on last season’s figure of 2,126.
• Boro equalled the Conference record of highest amount of games without conceding which is 8.
• In the 24 times this season that Boro scored first they went on to win 20 of them games. Losing 3.
• Stevenage lost 13 points this season from winning positions, but also gained 13 from losing positions.
• Boro gained 35 points away from home this season, the 5th best record in the division.
• The team kept 16 clean sheets this season, 8 of them coming before September ended.
• If all games had finished at half time this season Boro would of finished in 3rd place.
• Boro scored 82 goals this season, the 4th highest in the league.
• Steve Morison was Boro’s top scorer with 22 goals in the league.
• Boro haven’t drawn a game in 14 games since the 0-0 against Grays at Broadhall Way in February.

Albrighton Deal Done

Mark Albrighton has joined Stevenage Borough for a “nominal” fee according to the official Cambridge website. Albrighton is highly rated within the Blue Square Premier and will add much needed experience as well as quality to the Boro backline. He has already won promotion from this division when he was part of the Doncaster Rovers squad who won the play-offs in the 2002/2003 season. Albrighton’s arrival brings the number of new signings up to 9 with more expected in the next few weeks. Thoughts of what the Conference board think on Boro’s latest recruit can be seen here.

The Comet reports that Stevenage are set to receive a £10,000 bonus from George Boyd’s transfer to Peterborough United due to their promotion to League 1. If you also think that we will be receiving a large slice of any future transfer fee, believed to be 40%, then it is fair to say that Phil Wallace and the board did a pretty good job when it came to selling the white Pele. I think Boyd will eventually get a big move to either the Premiership or Championship and Posh have already rejected a £2.5m bid from an unnamed club.

While Mark Albrighton has come in, no players currently here look to moving out anytime soon. Bob Makin has confirmed that no bids have been received by the club for any of the transfer listed players, which includes Steve Morison.

“Nobody has contacted us about Steve or the three players we transfer-listed last week and no new players have arrived” Bob Makin

Makin though did say that friendlies against Norwich and Luton have fallen through, but hopes to get a “money spinning” game at Broadhall Way against either Arsenal or Liverpool. Gillingham meanwhile are reporting on their site that a friendly has been set up against Boro at Priestfield. The game will be on the Tuesday 15th of July and I for one will be making the trip to Kent. I can’t help but wonder why Stimson is not bringing his new side to Hertfordshire instead of us going to Gillingham. Usually the “bigger” side travels to play the game, but not this time. Anyway shall be an interesting evening to say the least!

Elsewhere, Peter Taylor has been confirmed as the new manager of Wycombe Wanderers. Taylor replaces Paul Lambert who left the League 2 side after losing in the play-offs to eventual winners Stockport. In his press conference Taylor says that fans will enjoy watching his team and that he wants a good relationship between players and supporters. Is this the same Peter Taylor that managed us last season? I seem to remember his team didn’t even bother doing a lap of honour for the last home game of the season let alone try playing attractive football that we enjoyed! All I will say is best of luck to Wycombe for the coming season.

It’s all gone quiet…

After a very busy few weeks where Peter Taylor left, Graham Westley came back, 9 players left and 8 players joined the club news seems to have finally quietened down at Broadhall Way. The last signing was Michael Bostwick who came in little under a week ago, whilst three players have been told that they are free to leave the club.

Looking at the squad as it is at the moment it looks pretty healthy, but there are still a few gaps that need filling. I’m sure that Westley now is looking into that and bringing in the experienced part of his squad. It has been rumoured that Cambridge’s Mark Albrighton maybe the next signing this summer. He would certainly fit into the above category. Albrighton is an experienced centre half who has previously played under Westley at Rushden & Diamonds as well as having successful spells at Boston United and Doncaster Rovers. A centre half must be top of Boro’s shopping list at the moment with Ashley Westwood transfer listed and Tommy Smith returning to Ipswich after a loan spell.

Ebbsfleet are fighting to get as much money as possible from Boro regarding the transfer of Michael Bostwick. The Kent club are unhappy that Bostwick left them to join Boro earlier this month, but require a fee due to FIFA rules that clubs have to be compensated if the player is under 24 years of age. The fee is expected to be negotiable between the two clubs, but Ebbsfleet have vowed to take Boro to a tribunal if the offer is lower than what they expect.

The England “C” team won the Four Nations tournament after beating Wales 2-0 in Rhyl. In the previous 2 fixtures against Gilbraltar and Scotland, England have ran out 1-0 winners with goals from Mitchell Cole and Steve Morison. The England side now goes on tour to the Caribbean where they will play Grenada and Barbados.

FC Boro’s 2007/2008 Season Awards

After a time of reflection and with not that much to report on I’ve decided to do an end of season awards post. The summer is now in full swing and before too long pre-season will be here so here’s the results from the 2007/2008 season.

Player of the Season

Well considering only a handful of players played the whole season with the club, which is quite sad really, there can only be one winner and that is Steve Morison. Not only was he the clubs top scorer, but Moro worked tirelessly in every game he played in last season, under tough circumstances. He could well be off this summer to the football league, but after the last two seasons playing at a good level of consistency in the BSP he deserves it.

Most Improved Player

This award again only had a few candidates, but it goes to Daryl McMahon. Last season Mark Stimson brought in McMahon to boost the midfield for the run in to the end of the season, but overall he didn’t make a massive impression on the side. He showed that he had sound technical ability, but was overlooked in favour of Miller or Hughes to partner Mark Beard. This year however McMahon has done a great job as a squad player. He came in when Mitchell Cole was injured early in the season and scored some vital goals in our good run of form, with the one at York standing out. Arguably McMahon has been a better option than Cole on the left this season and has shown a great deal of professionalism when not in the side when maybe he deserved to be.

Worst Player of the Season

There’s probably quite a few players who could of won this award, particularly in the latter half of the season. Names that came to mind included Lawrie Wilson, Tyrone Berry, Tes Bramble and Mark Molesley. Eventually though I decided to give it to Junior Lewis because quick frankly he is probably the worst ever player to play for Stevenage, and there have been a few. Lewis played in mid season under Taylor, but seemed to want an hour to turn and pass the ball. I’ve never seen an ex-Premiership player be so slow and give so many balls away.

Best Newcomer

Well considering the squad is now fairly unrecognisable from what it was this time last season, I suppose there’s a lot to choose from. The two loanees, Gavin Grant and Tommy Smith, made a good impact, but overall the best new player for 2007/2008 is John Martin. Mark Stimson signed Martin a few days before last season’s FA Trophy win. Martin made an instant impact in the midfield and began to create a good partnership with Stuart Lewis before Lewis moved to Gillingham. Martin was full of energy last season, chipping in with a few goals too.

Disappointment of the Season

Well this season there has been plenty to write home about. Firstly Stimson ditching the club in the way he did was very disappointing and then adding insult to injury with taking Miller, Nutter, Fuller and Lewis, arguably our core of the team with him. Add to that the unsettling of Dobson, Arber, Julian and Henry made this season more or less a write off. Secondly Peter Taylor’s reign as manager. When PT was appointed Boro were well placed in the play-off positions and there was still optimism at BHW that Boro would get promotion considering they had brought in one of the best managers outside the Premiership. Taylor’s reign was a disaster for both him and the club. Poor players, 1 by 1, came in and didn’t adapt to Conference football at all. The style of football was also terrible and boring to watch and it seemed that Taylor didn’t really ever want to be at Boro. Overall it has to be Stimson walking out on Boro.

Highlight of the Season

Probably the point of the season where we were top and had gone on the run of 8 games without conceeding a goal. It was at that point I started to believe that it might just be our year. One management change later and it all went downhill from there.

Low Point of the Season

More or less at the same time, after we went top rumours about Stimson going to Gillingham started. He went after weeks of will he won’t he. That more or less ended our season there and then. A big low point for the whole club because all that had been built in the 18 or so months Stimson was here had gone just like that.

Best Home Game

I think the best home game was the win over the eventual champions Aldershot. We played particularly well that day and ended up 3-1 winners with Mitchell Cole impressing alongside Steve Morison.

Worst Home Game

The last home game of the season against Northwich was pretty depressing. Our slim hopes of reaching the play-offs were dashed as Dino Maamria’s side beat us 2-1 to survive relegation. Also the players didn’t even do a traditional end of season lap of honour which I think showed the lack of connection between Taylor’s team and the Boro fans. Hopefully our next game at Broadhall Way will see a win for a change.

Best Away trip

I didn’t go to every away game so for me the performance at Histon stands out. Taylor’s team clicked that night and ran out 4-1 winners. The win at Woking also was a good trip. Beating them anytime is good, but we were so comfortable that night it was unbelieveable that the two teams were from the same league. I didn’t go to York or Kidderminster which were also good away wins.

Worst Away trip

The two trips to Exeter were pretty awful resulting in 4-0 defeats both times. Also Taylor’s antics in one of the game’s was unacceptable. However, for me the away game at Farsley on a Thursday night where we drew 0-0 was one of the worst games I have ever seen. It was played in freezing temperatures and both sides were terrible.

Who do you think should of won an award, but didn’t? Comment below.

The changes keep on coming!

Boro’s captain for the latter part of last season, Ashley Westwood plus Wayne O’Sullivan and Peter Vincenti have been told that they are surplus to requirements at Broadhall Way next season. All were signed by former boss Peter Taylor at the beginning of the year, but will be available for free just months after joining the club. Westwood is the most notable name on the list and will probably be the most likely one to find a new club. Both O’Sullivan and Vincenti are on good deals and maybe on higher wages than what other clubs may be willing to pay them so it could be harder for Boro to offload them.

Westley has spoken to the Comet about the new boys at Boro as well as his reasoning behind transfer listing Westwood, Vincenti and O’Sullivan. With just 3 or 4 players left to sign to make his squad complete, GW is now looking for that bit of experience and quality to make Boro real challengers for promotion next season.

“There’s a lot of youth at this club and we probably just need to top off the squad with a bit of class and experience.” Westley

The players that Westley will now target will be of quality, the kind of players that will win games and show that bit of experience to pull the younger players in the squad through. Westley needs to sign a Mark Arber type of defender, someone with that bit of leadership and experience of playing at a higher level. An experienced striker I’m sure is also on the list having heard that GW has failed in attempts to bring in both Daryl Clare and Lee Phillips.

With Morison seemingly on his way out then someone maybe who is tall and can hold the ball up would be a good signing. Both new strikers, Westcarr and Thomas, are quick and having someone who can feed them would be ideal. Would Liam Hatch be available from Peterborough? I’m pretty sure all will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Stevenage have also announced some changes in the boardroom. Two new members, Paul Wallace and Marcus Taverner QC, have joined the board. Mick Shortland, who previously announced he was going to step down has changed his mind and will also continue as a board member, although living in Devon. Hopefully the “stronger” board will lead to more investment in the club, both on and off the pitch. Paul Wallace’s movement into a board position also re-affirms Phil Wallace’s commitment to the club. With his son now on the board, then the club will continue to have that continuity when Phil is out of the country.

Lastly, Ex-Boro midfielder Mark Molesley has joined Grays Athletic. Molesley was only at Boro for a year before being released earlier in the month. If played regularly, Molesley could prove to be a handy signing for Grays as they aim to improve on their mid table finish of last season.