Billericay Town - A Spectata History

Billericay Town are exactly the kind of club that fits the Spectata profile we like to follow, “there’s more here than you think” history piece – long non-league roots, cult 70s glory, and a wild modern boom‑and‑bust era.

A town, a club, and a blue shirt

If you only know Billericay from reality TV and Essex stereotypes, you miss the bit that really matters: New Lodge on a Saturday.

Walk up past the houses and trees on Blunts Wall Road and you hit a ground that has seen almost every version of non‑league football over the last half‑century – from village‑club vibes to a brief attempt at being the most talked‑about team in England’s seventh tier.

Billericay Town were founded in 1880, which quietly makes them one of the older clubs in the non‑league landscape. For decades they lived in local competitions and county cups, playing in front of a few hundred people at most, the sort of side whose name you’d only really know if you lived nearby or followed the Essex scene closely.

From village side to Wembley regulars

The real take‑off came in the 1970s. Billericay moved into the Essex Senior League and immediately turned into a small‑club powerhouse, winning the title in 1972–73, 1973–74 and 1974–75 and basically outgrowing the level in a rush of goals and promotion parties.

At the same time they fell in love with a new national competition: the FA Vase. Between 1976 and 1979, this little club from Essex became the first team ever to win the Vase three times, turning Billericay into a regular name on Wembley scoreboards.

- 1976: a tight 1–0 win over Stamford under the Twin Towers.

- 1977: a replayed final against Sheffield, after a draw at Wembley, finally settled at Nottingham’s City Ground.

- 1979: a 4–1 win over Almondsbury Greenway, with forward Doug Young scoring a hat‑trick – the only time anyone managed that in a Vase final at the old Wembley.

By the end of the decade they had also won back‑to‑back Athenian League titles and then the Isthmian League Division Two at the first attempt, climbing the non‑league ladder while taking a sizeable chunk of the Vase’s early history with them. For a generation of supporters, “going to Billericay” meant you might be watching the most dangerous cup side in non‑league.

New Lodge: small ground, big stories

New Lodge has been home since 1970 and it feels like a proper non‑league ground: single main stand, open ends, trees on the skyline and floodlights that look a fraction too tall for the houses around them. It has been expanded and smartened up over time – especially during the high‑investment years – but you can still sense the layers underneath: the old hard‑standing, the memories of Vase runs, the midweek league matches where only the most committed turn up.

In the 2000s and 2010s Billericay bounced between the top of the Isthmian League and the step above, reaching the National League South, dropping back, and then going again. Along the way they picked up silverware closer to home – the Essex Senior Cup, the Isthmian League Cup in 2016–17 and 2017–18 – adding modern dates to the honours board next to those 70s trophies.

On a typical matchday now you get a mix: long‑time locals who remember the Vase years, younger fans who grew up in the social‑media era, and people drawn in by the club’s brief spell as non‑league’s most viral soap opera. It is still pay‑at‑the‑gate football though – you are close enough to hear everything the bench says and to see the same faces every home game.

The Glenn Tamplin circus

If the 1970s made Billericay famous in non‑league circles, 2016 made them famous on the internet. Multi‑millionaire steel magnate Glenn Tamplin bought the club, announced big ambitions and turned New Lodge into a reality‑TV‑adjacent project, complete with inspirational murals, rousing speeches, and signings that looked more like a charity match line‑up than an Isthmian Premier squad.

Former Premier League names like Jamie O’Hara, Jermaine Pennant and Paul Konchesky suddenly found themselves playing in front of a few hundred in Essex, and global media turned up to see what was going on. Crowds went up, clips went viral, and Billericay became the go‑to example whenever anyone wanted to talk about money, ego and the strange new world of non‑league football in the social‑media age.

On the pitch, there were trophies and promotions – including an Isthmian Premier title and cup wins – but off it the project was always fragile. Tamplin’s time at the club was full of headlines, fall‑outs and sudden turns, and by 2019 the era was effectively over, leaving Billericay to deal with the financial and emotional aftershocks of being briefly “the most talked‑about club in non‑league”.

Back to being Billericay

The most interesting part of the story is where Billericay ended up. After the circus moved on, the club had to scale back and remember what it was before the murals, the celebrity ownership rumours and the ex‑Premier League cameos – a strong community non‑league side, rooted in a town that will still turn up for blue shirts long after the cameras have gone.

Today Billericay are back in the Isthmian League Premier Division, trading long‑distance National League trips for more familiar regional rivalries. The fixture list looks more modest, but the club feels more authentic again: local kids in the teams, volunteers running the matchday operation, fans talking about form and signings rather than off‑field drama.

In a way, that arc – from village side to Vase legends, from social‑media project back to steady non‑league club – is exactly why a place like Billericay belongs on Spectata. It shows how modern football can drag even small clubs into storylines they never asked for, and how, once the noise dies down, the core is still the same: a ground, a town, and people turning up in the rain because this is their team.