On a Saturday featuring five Premier League matches in London, perhaps the capital’s most fascinating encounter is elsewhere: the long-awaited ‘derby’ in the FA Cup second qualifying round between eighth-tier Enfield FC and sixth-tier Enfield Town.
They’ve never met in the league, and while they played one another several years ago in minor non-League cup competitions, this FA Cup tie is unquestionably the biggest fixture between the sides.
Reaching this all-Enfield clash from central London is simple. You go to Finsbury Park, take the train eight stops north to Enfield Chase station… oh, and then stay on the train for another five stops, by which point you’ve travelled a further 13 miles past Enfield to the quaint county town of Hertford, way outside the boundaries of London.
That, in more ways than one, is how this journey begins.
Enfield is a pleasant, unremarkable suburb of north London. Geographically closest to Tottenham Hotspur, there’s also a sizeable Arsenal support here. In the 1980s, Enfield FC were among the most prominent clubs in non-League football, twice winning the FA Trophy, the cup competition for sides playing in the fifth to eighth tiers, and twice winning the fifth-tier Alliance Premier League, the predecessor to the Conference and National League, in 1982-83 and 1985-86.
In the modern era, those two league triumphs would have resulted in promotion, but back then, there was no automatic promotion or relegation between the fourth and fifth tiers. Instead, there was a system of re-election, where the bottom-placed clubs in the Football League effectively reapplied for their place and the best-placed non-League clubs stood in an election against them. Chairmen of the other Football League clubs voted, and they generally opted for the status quo. After all, why grant entry to an upwardly mobile club when you can continue competing against a confirmed straggler?
Enfield FC vs Cardiff City at their Southbury Road stadium in a 1994 FA Cup tie (David Davies/Mark Leech Sports Photography/Getty Images)
Less than a year after Enfield FC’s second title success, the rules changed. Had they finished top in 1987 rather than 1986, they would have been automatically promoted. Enfield would have been a Football League side. Maybe they would still be today.
Instead, Enfield FC remained a non-League club and encountered a familiar tale of financial hardship and questionable ownership, the two problems rarely being far apart.
In 1999, the chairman of Enfield FC sold their traditional home ground, Southbury Road, for housing and retail development, and promised to use the funds to build a slick new ground elsewhere. This is always easier said than done, especially in a city as tightly packed as London.
Over a quarter of a century later, Enfield FC have never had another home of their own. Since then, they’ve groundshared at Boreham Wood (10 miles away) and Ware (15 miles away), then went bankrupt and reformed at lower levels of the pyramid, playing in Broxbourne (five miles away) and Brimsdown (three miles away), before being promoted again and therefore having to turn to larger, more distant grounds in Harlow Town (13 miles away), Bishop’s Stortford (22 miles away) and, since last year, today’s venue of Hertford Town (12 miles away).
Clearly, Enfield FC no longer represents the town of Enfield.
But Enfield Town do. Back in 2001, a group of Enfield FC supporters realised which way the wind was blowing — and how far away their team was going — and formed a breakaway club.
Enfield Town formed at three levels below Enfield FC in the pyramid, and yet they attracted — or retained — more supporters. In fact, that is underselling it. Enfield Town FC were the first supporter-owned club in England.
“The old club died when they left Enfield,” declared Town’s first chairman, Dave Bryant, upon their formation back in 2001. Enfield-born Bryant, whose day job was working for Unison, the trade union for public sector workers, was a perfect figurehead to rally the new club, which has always operated on a one-member, one-vote system. The concept of fan ownership was previously considered a fantasy, something for Germans and other sports. But Enfield Town believed it could work in English football.
There was no obvious path back home. “It’s a huge risk,” wrote When Saturday Comes magazine, of the new club back in 2001. “The sense of empowerment could quickly dissipate if they fail on the pitch and find themselves tramping around Essex year after year. Success, too, could bring problems. Rapid progress up the pyramid will hasten the need for a new ground, but spare land is at a premium in an area of suburban London that has seen non-League grounds fall by the wayside at an alarming rate.”
But gradually, Enfield Town (to avoid confusion, let’s simply call them ‘Town’ from here) worked their way back towards where they belonged, both in division and location. After a decade of playing at small venues, including a season when both Enfields played at the Brimsdown ground, Town struck a deal with the council to secure a move back to Enfield town in 2011. They inherited a derelict athletics ground, not far from the site of the old club’s old home, and raised £150,000 ($200,000) to turn it into a serviceable, if quirky, non-League football ground.
A running track is always an obstacle for the ideal football ground, but unlike in comparable situations — such as Chelmsford City or West Ham United — Town have been able to install terraces right behind the goals, creating a proper non-League atmosphere.
The old Art Deco clubhouse, meanwhile, offers a glorious side-on view. Officially known as the Queen Elizabeth II Stadium for athletics meetings, it was renamed The Dave Bryant Stadium after the former chairman’s death last year.
In 2024, they were promoted to the National League South for the first time and survived relegation by three points. They’re now two levels above Enfield FC — but, more importantly, only one step away from the fifth-tier status Enfield enjoyed in their heyday. Town have 500 paying members, and this season, their average home attendance is an impressive 825. They are the model in non-League football, and their board happily advises supporters of other clubs who might be looking ‘to do an Enfield Town’.
The crowd takes in ‘the derby’ (Michael Cox/The Athletic)
So what of Enfield FC? Considering they went bankrupt and reformed in 2007, their rise back through the leagues has been impressive, although their business model is very different.
Enfield FC struggled to retain supporters and have regularly given away free season tickets to boost their attendance figures, which this season has been around 120. With no ground to generate revenue, and limited gate receipts, Enfield FC rely on benefactors putting large sums of money into the club — not uncommon at this level.
Two years ago, a director of the club, Simon Needham, was found dead. The coroner summarised that, “On the balance of probabilities, he was acting on his mind, and sadly he felt he had no option but to end his life, and that was his intention.”
It emerged that Needham, an accountant, had major financial problems and owed a total of around £24m to multiple clients. After his death, directors realised the club’s finances were in a more perilous state than they had believed.
Several players and members of the coaching staff left the club immediately after Needham’s death. The finances of a football club matter little in relation to the personal tragedy, but it seems clear that Enfield FC were being run differently to Town.
The obvious question, with the geographical and historical considerations, is whether we should consider this a derby, or even a rivalry.
Many AFC Wimbledon fans would prefer not to face MK Dons at all, and many Town fans would rather not be playing against the club that many of them once supported.
“I don’t think it’s a rivalry,” says Town chairman Paul Reed, whose previous visit to this ground was scoring here in a Sunday league fixture a decade ago. “Considering the reasons the majority of (Enfield FC) fans formed the (new) club, the fact this is being played in Hertford reinforces that it’s the right decision.”
Indeed, when Enfield FC went bankrupt and reformed in 2007, Town suggested a merger. It would have unified the two clubs and officially given Town the history and honours of the original club. Instead, Enfield FC elected to go their own way. Clearly, they feel the rivalry more strongly.
Before this weekend’s game, Town manager Gavin Macpherson was playing down the rivalry. “I’m aware of the history, and I fully understand why people think there’s a rivalry there, but I will keep that to one side,” he told the Non-League Paper.
But even he accidentally stumbled into the issue later in the same interview when talking about the importance of an FA Cup run. “When you look at the volunteers we’ve got, some have been supporting our club for 60 years,” he continued. “All right, it was the old club — which brings us back to the topic of the day — and then they decided to go with the new club, but people have been there 60 years and they talk about those games.”
His counterpart at Enfield FC didn’t hold back. “It’s a proper derby game, isn’t it?” said Enfield FC boss Alex Salmon. “A proper, proper derby, and you don’t get many of them in non-League. This has been a long time coming… my message to both sets of supporters is just to enjoy it — and to behave, of course.”
The ‘home’ supporters are completely outnumbered by Town fans, who bring several hundred up from London. Even with extra staff drafted in, the bar is overwhelmed, the burger van has a 15-minute queue, and the toilets are best not described.
In non-League, the convention for supporters is to stand behind the goal your side are shooting into, and therefore switch ends at half-time, which makes the difference in supporter numbers very easy to assess.
Town attacking towards their fans (Michael Cox/The Athletic)
Town have several hundred squeezed into a covered section behind the goal, which can easily be divided into a larger group of middle-aged supporters and families, then a sizeable posse of teenage ultras, all dressed in black in the same style as, for example, the Ashburton Army at Arsenal.
The opposite end shows the home support for Enfield FC (Michael Cox/The Athletic)
Initially, they’re all together, and any debate about whether the Town fanbase considers this a rivalry is put to bed fairly quickly. In the 15 minutes after kick-off, the away supporters produce one of the most magnificent quickfire medleys of football chants you’ll ever hear, modified for the occasion.
This includes, in chronological order: “Your support is f*****g s**t”, “Enfield are homeless everywhere they go”, “There’s only one team in Enfield”, “You’re just a bus stop in Hertford”, “You’re supposed to be at home”, “What’s it like to see a crowd?”, “Where’s your home ground gone?”, “S**t ground no fans”, “No noise from the Hertford boys”, “You’ve got more flags than fans”, which becomes “You’ve had more grounds than fans”, “You’re not Enfield any more”, and, perhaps most damningly, “We’re Enfield Town, we left coz you’re s**t.”
The only crowd trouble, interestingly, is not between rival fans. It comes when, shortly after Town’s second goal, one of the young ‘ultras’ launches a smoke bomb onto the pitch, with, it must be said, a throw so impressive that he should probably be using his club’s athletics-cum-football home ground for the javelin.
After a (literal) steward’s enquiry, he is forcibly removed from the ground by security and shouted at by older Town supporters on his way. “You’re not welcome!” one screams at him on his way out. “You’re not a Town fan! You’re a f*****g idiot!”
A supporter was removed from the ground after throwing a flare onto the pitch (Michael Cox/The Athletic)
Another smoke bomb is released behind the goal shortly afterwards. “Give it a rest lads,” another old fan appeals, to some jeers. He then tries, “Do you want us thrown out of the competition?” which is met with a worried silence, but then the ultras respond with a round of “No pyro, no party”, which seems like a motto the older supporters would interpret as an ideal policy.
The game itself is, really, somewhat of a formality for Town. They’re ahead within 10 minutes, courtesy of a slick finish from Sam Youngs. They double their lead midway through the first half, with a rebound from a long throw fired home by Lamar Reynolds.
They could have scored more. Their manager, Macpherson, is shouting to anyone who will listen about the side’s “conversion rate” not being good enough, and the only big cheer from the home supporters comes when Town have the ball in the net shortly before half-time, but a very late offside flag denies them. Town eventually get their third goal midway through the second half, courtesy of Oliver Young.
Of course, you only ever hear about the upsets in these early rounds of the FA Cup, but most matches are like this. The side two divisions above are better in every respect, most noticeably in one-against-one duels out wide. Three-nil is a fair result.
Standing alongside the Enfield FC supporters in the second half is a bit of a comedown. A quick straw poll about why they stuck with the club produces some typical responses about loyalty, but many are here because a family member is involved.
Ultimately, it’s difficult to understand why Enfield FC needs to exist in its current form. Perhaps it’s understandable they didn’t accept the offer of a merger before Town had secured a home ground back in Enfield. But being outnumbered, out-sung and outplayed by your club’s breakaway club is, evidently, a difficult experience.
Back in 2001, it would have been difficult to imagine a more comprehensive victory for Town than this — on the pitch, clearly, but primarily off it.
“One thing we’ve done, having our home in Enfield, is to build on the stuff we’ve done in our community,” says the club’s vice-chairman, Paul Millington. “We’ve got 30-plus boys and girls teams, a disability team. All that stuff was important to make sure people felt the club was part of the community. That’s one of the success stories we’ve had, despite everything we’ve done on the pitch.”
The next FA Cup round is the only qualifying round where no new sides from higher divisions enter, so teams want easy draws rather than a big club — for now.
“At this level, the FA Cup is so important, and we’ve never got to the first round before as Enfield Town,” says Town chairman Reed.
“That would be our ambition, to get on television or get a Football League team at home. So until the first round, the best way to do that is to play the lowest-ranked team you can — at home.”
And that simple desire — to play at home — is precisely why Enfield Town exists.
(Top photo: Michael Cox/The Athletic)