HISTORY

1981 photo, current Echo league Ref and good friend of the club is Paul Kemp (front row-second left)

BUCKHURST HILL FC - OUR HISTORY

Buckhurst Hill Football Club was formed in 1985 by Richard Brand and Alfie Sacre with the objective of providing youth football in the local community.

From humble beginnings our first team was put together and Richard and Alfie were soon joined by Ray Sherrin (who is still our Club President today) to run the club, and with more local awareness more volunteers came forward to help run more teams. The club is also well respected and supported by MP’S, County Councillors, District Councillors, Parish Councillors and Residents Associations.

Our first team success was our under 15’s who were winners of the Echo League Cup A division in season 1985/86 with our first league success in 1986/87 with Richard Brand and our under 14’s winning the Echo B division. Over the coming years and throughout the nineties further success was achieved through our youth teams from ages under 10-17.

We introduced mini soccer and in the 1999/2000 season our under 7’s won our first league trophy in the Barking mini league. Now thirty five years on the club has grown to over 40 teams starting from Under 7’s to Under 18’s, including six girls teams, we also have our successful mini soccer training at four to six years of age. Our youth teams play in the Eastern Junior Alliance, Mid-Herts Rural, Echo, Essex Girls and Brentwood Community League.

We have now become one of the most successful youth clubs not only in Essex but throughout the country with numerous County and National Cup successes and league titles, and over 30 boys who have come through our system go on to play at professional level, and over 50 currently at academy’s throughout the Country. Just last season one of our girls signed for Tottenham.

Our youth teams play across five leagues, Eastern Junior Alliance, Echo, JPL, Essex Girls and the Brentwood Community Leagues.

To help support our youth system we restructured our senior section in 2014 to provide a progressive path for our homegrown players with the addition of our under 18’s, and Reserve’s to help develop them to men’s football and our first team which we are already seeing the benefits of which bodes well for the future.

The club consists of two distinct entities the Buckhurst Hill Foundation which is a registered Charity and is governed by our Trustees and Buckhurst Hill Football Club which is overseen by an elected management committee.

Since 2000 there have been some notable achievements.

In 2000 the Foundation purchased the freehold of our current Roding Lane ground.

In 2001 with the aid of lottery grants and funding we built a new clubhouse

In 2012 we took a 25 year lease with our friends at Buckhurst Hill sports and social club adjacent to our main ground which has now become our mini soccer academy for all our 5×5 and 7×7 teams.

In 2015 through help and support from Grange Farm and numerous fundraising activities a bridge was built to join the two sites across the river Roding and provide a safe and secure access to both grounds.

In 2019 We started our first steps up the FA pyramid with our first team winning the Essex Olympian Premier League, and the Essex Senior Cup.

This then enabled us to begin the first phase of our ground development.

This included concrete walkways, pitch barrier fencing, new dug outs, new goals and moving our first team pitch. This was achieved with 70% funding from the Football Foundation.

In 2021 we won the Premiership again and our promotion was confirmed to step six and for the first time in the Club’s history Senior Men’s football in the Thurlow Nunn League.

We then received our second phase of funding for stands, floodlights, and turnstiles.

In 2022 and in our first season in the Thurlow Nunn League we finished runners up, and promotion was confirmed to the Essex Senior League and step five football for the first time.

Our first season in the Essex Senior League was tough but safety was assured with six games of the season to play and we finished in 17th position in the table.

The club did play in the FA Cup for the first time with notable victories against Walthamstow FC and FC Stansted which will long live in our memories.

Now time for the next chapter of our history.

Historical Photos