One Goal Short – The Story of Billericay Town Football Club’s 2024/25 Promotion Race

CHAPTER ONE - THE SCENE-SETTER

The ancient oak still stands sentinel in the corner of New Lodge, its branches stretching over the same patch of Blunts Wall Road long before the ground was ever a football pitch. Supporters file through the turnstiles in the same familiar rhythm, having the same conversations with the same people week in, week out. It is always the same, the comfort of a Saturday ritual in deepest Essex. Until it isn’t.

Billericay Town Football Club, founded in 1880, carry with them a history and a presence that belie their non-league standing. Their story has spilled far beyond the commuter belt, drawing attention and intrigue from across the English game. For regulars here, though, it is not the headlines that are of interest, but instead the walk down Blunts Wall Road, the sight of the oak, the smell of fresh onions being loaded onto burgers, the first glimpse of blue shirts warming up on the pitch.

This week, though, something feels different. There is a buzz, a sharper edge to the pre-match chatter. Everyone knows what is at stake, even if they cannot quite put it into words yet. The faithful talk with the anticipation of characters before a battle, knowing their club’s past, hoping for its future, bracing themselves for whatever ninety minutes will bring.

To understand why, you have to look beyond any single promotion race, even one dramatic enough to capture national headlines. The same headlines once bore the name Glenn Tamplin in the late 2010s, and long before that, the headlines that celebrated Doug Young’s hat-trick at Wembley in 1979 to secure Billericay’s third FA Vase in four years. Everyone in non-league knows Billericay. And the story of last season’s promotion battle deserves to be told by those who lived it.

“It’s a sleeping giant,” said manager Gary McCann, seated in the boardroom beneath the glint of silverware in the club’s trophy cabinet, the sound of children echoing from the artificial pitch outside as Thursday night training began.

“I think it’s a club that’s very much ready and geared and prepared for take-off,” McCann continued. “It’s a club that feels like it’s playing a level or two under what it really should be. It’s well supported, both on the terraces and in the boardroom. It’s definitely a football club that’s very engaging and very inclusive.”

Billericay currently ply their trade in the seventh tier of English football in the Isthmian Premier League. When McCann arrived in April 2023, the club had just endured a flat return to the division following relegation in 2022. That season ended in tenth, a mid-table finish reflecting a fanbase disillusioned by the steady decline after Tamplin’s exit in 2019.

But stability soon followed. Local businessmen Dave McCartney and Nick Hutt led a consortium that steadied the ship post-Tamplin, and by the end of McCann’s first full campaign, hope had returned. The Blues finished sixth, narrowly missing the play-offs after a late-season wobble.

Ben Robinson, former Head of Media and now Club Videographer, has been coming to New Lodge for nine years. He shares in the sense of momentum.

“It’s been hard going since the Tamplin era ended, and it felt like last season was a turning point for the club,” he said. “It was our first competitive season under the new owners, and it feels like everything has fallen into place nicely now.”

Matchdays at New Lodge follow a familiar rhythm. Supporters gather in The Crown on the High Street. Others stroll through Lake Meadows past Georgian facades, stopping at Greggs or a café. Some arrive ten minutes before kick-off, joining the snaking queue up Blunts Wall Road, dodging tractors en route to the nearby farm.

Sarah Lane, a regular since 1997, explains how her love for the club began. “I wanted to go to West Ham but Dad wouldn’t take me as I was too young, so we went to a Billericay game and have been going ever since!”

Her Saturday ritual is set in stone: “Gym in the morning then round to my Mum and Dad’s for a bacon roll before heading off to New Lodge.”

It’s these routines and shared traditions that define the club – and non-league football more broadly. Everyone is involved. Everyone celebrates. Everyone hurts. All within the modest, yet impressive, 3,500-capacity stadium.

“It’s my community,” said Supporters’ Society chair Rob Street, who first walked through the New Lodge turnstiles in 1979. And that word, “community,” is what gives the club its heartbeat.

New Lodge rarely sleeps, and McCann agrees:

“(The club) doesn’t just home in on the first team like a lot of non-league football clubs do. They’re very much geared around making sure everyone feels part of it, which very much attracted me to the position. We have women’s teams, we have girls’ teams, we have disability teams, we have youth sections, we have walking football, we have plenty going on here.”

Heading into the final months of the 2024/25 season, Billericay was alive with hope, tension, and everything in between. The Blues were in a three-horse race for the Isthmian Premier League title, battling Horsham and Dartford for the division’s sole automatic promotion spot.

Three damaging home defeats in March had derailed the charge, a run McCann would later call “pivotal in our disappointment.” But a remarkable turnaround followed: four straight wins, including three in the league and a League Cup triumph, leaving Billericay top heading into the final day.

But nothing was guaranteed. Billericay, Horsham, and Dartford all sat on 84 points, separated only by goal difference. The equation was simple – beat Cheshunt, a side marooned in mid-table with nothing to play for, and promotion was likely. Unless of course, Horsham thrashed Hashtag United. Dartford needed both rivals to slip and to beat the notoriously tricky Carshalton Athletic.

The club released 2,500 tickets for the final-day clash, and they sold out within days. Requests flooded Facebook pages. Favour calls were made. Everyone wanted in. It felt like old times again, like the wounds left by the past had finally begun to heal.

When Saturday 26 April arrived, it felt like a full-circle moment. The town was ready. Billericay Town were ninety minutes from the National League South.

CHAPTER TWO - THE CHESHUNT GAME

The faces told their own story long before kick-off. Some supporters wore the quiet optimism of a season’s worth of graft, while many others carried the nerves that only football can summon. On the touchline, Gary McCann and his coaching staff showed little obvious emotion, but there was no hiding the stakes. Few could have foreseen the scenario awaiting Billericay Town on the final day of the season, and fewer still could have imagined what would unfold across the next two hours on a sun-drenched April afternoon.

By 2pm, the ground was already heaving. Blue and white balloons drifted across the pitch, kids in shirts two sizes too big chased each other around the terraces, and the Blunts Wall Road end was a wall of noise.

“Before the game I was convinced we were going up,” admitted Street. “Although I wasn’t going to say that to anyone.”

Inside the boardroom, the Isthmian Premier League trophy gleamed on the table, alongside a box of winners’ medals and a checklist for the afternoon’s celebrations. A DJ was booked for the bar. Everything was set for the perfect promotion party.

When the referee’s whistle blew, Billericay were champions – at least according to the live table, which placed a bold ‘C’ beside their name. The terraces erupted into familiar choruses: “Come on Ricay” to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, and “Every Saturday we follow…,” their own take on the ‘Allez Allez Allez’ chant now ingrained in English football culture.

The first ten minutes were tense and cagey, as expected for such a high-profile encounter. And then the drama began, not just in Essex, but in Kent and Sussex too.

3:11pm. Two extraordinary minutes saw all three title challengers concede, a unique scenario that actually benefitted the Blues – they’d be champions if this were how it finished. In Billericay’s case, a set-piece delivery deflected into their own net off defender Tommy Davis. An optimistic roar went up from behind the goal. Plenty of time left.

3:15pm. Disaster. A high, hanging cross from the Cheshunt left was destined for Billericay goalkeeper Sam Donkin’s gloves, until Cheshunt forward Kenny Coker clattered into him. Everyone expected the referee to blow for a foul.

He didn’t.

The ball spilled loose, and amid the scramble, Cheshunt defender Dequane Wilson-Braithwaite poked it home. The pocket of travelling fans behind the goal celebrated. The rest of New Lodge fell silent.

“Going down 2-0 early doors was a bitter blow,” recalled steward Andy Butt, now into his 50th season watching his hometown club.

“I was constantly checking my phone for score updates,” said Robinson, who was filming the game in the gantry above the West Stand. “The atmosphere was still one of the best I’ve seen, but I didn’t trust Hashtag to do us a favour.”

And Robinson’s suspicions were correct, as moments later, Horsham equalised. By 3:30pm, they had taken the lead.

3:44pm. Hope. A lofted ball into the area was met by Billericay striker Frankie Merrifield, who rose above his marker to nod the ball past Cheshunt keeper R’avan Constable. Three thousand Blues erupted.

Dartford conceded again as the half ended, effectively ending their challenge. Horsham missed a penalty. The margins were razor thin.

Half-time brought a pause but not calm. “I was so nervous… before the game and up to the final whistle,” admitted Lane. “Half of it I spent on Football Web Pages checking the other scores.”

McCann made his move at the interval, introducing forward Decarrey Sheriff for midfielder Ben Steward, switching to 4-2-4. All-out attack.

Billericay flew out the blocks, and a fast start was swiftly rewarded just four minutes into the second half, when captain Matt Johnson smashed the ball home from a corner. 2-2. One more goal, and Billericay would be top of the league once more.

4:18pm. The change paid off – Sheriff burst onto a long ball, drew the keeper, and lofted it into the empty net. Drinks flew, the bench emptied onto the pitch, bodies piled on top of each other. New Lodge was carnage.

“When we went top briefly, I was ecstatic,” recalled supporter Ben Morris, who had made the trip down from Yorkshire in hope of seeing his boyhood side get over the line.

But the joy was fleeting. Within a minute, Horsham struck again, moving 3-1 ahead. Billericay clung to top spot only on goals scored, and eyes were glued to phones once again.

Then came the moment that will haunt Billericay supporters for years to come. Merrifield was hauled down in the box, winning a penalty. Sheriff placed the ball with promotion resting on his right foot.

He struck it well, high to the left, but Constable guessed right and saved. A faint cheer went up from the 20 Cheshunt fans behind the opposite goal.

That proved to be the turning point, as within five minutes, Horsham were 5-1 up in Sussex. Billericay needed two more goals with less than twenty minutes on the clock. A groan swept through the crowd when news broke of a second Horsham penalty – only for it to turn into a cheer when word came through that it had been missed.

“Looking back now,” said Morris, “the main feeling is regret knowing we had it in our hands and lost it.”

But as the clock ticked on, the noise subsided to a murmur once again, punctuated by the occasional shout of encouragement from the die-hards.

4:52pm. NINE added minutes at New Lodge. One final roar from behind the goal. Surely not another twist?

4:58pm. An almighty scramble in the Cheshunt area as the Blues threw everything at it. The ball somehow trickled over the keeper and in. 17-year-old Charlie Panton got the final touch, and suddenly they were back within one. The full-time whistle sounded at Horsham; they’d done their bit. Dartford had lost 4-1, their focus now moving to the play-offs.

The ground came alive again. 3,000 emotionally drained supporters gave it one last hurrah. One goal would win the title for Billericay.

Donkin abandoned his goal to join the attacks, his lime-green shirt standing out as he hurled himself at every cross and corner along with his ten brothers in blue. Corner, cleared. Cross, cleared. All eyes on the referee. The clock ticked over the 100-minute mark.

It had gone 5pm when Billericay full-back Bradley Williams flew into the area and fizzed a low cross to the back post. Sheriff threw everything at it, the title on his toe. Blocked on the line. Corner.

The last corner was cleared. Full-time. Horsham had won the Isthmian Premier League by a single goal.

“When we finished one goal short,” said Street, “I thought we had lost our chance and the play-offs would be painful.”

Silence fell over New Lodge. Players dropped to the turf, some in tears. Supporters flocked to the exits, questioning what on earth had just happened.

“Emotionally, it was one of the most draining moments in my career,” McCann later reflected. “I had players out on the pitch in tears… I remember driving home and it was like someone had clicked their fingers – I drove in overdrive, just completely lost in the moment.”

And yet, the silence didn’t last long. Applause began to ripple, building into a standing ovation. The Blue Army acknowledged the herculean effort from their troops. In a moment of such despair and pain, it was the most united the club had been for many a year.

Club PA Paul Jennings has been a New Lodge regular for decades, and despite the bitter disappointment of that April afternoon, he was in a reflective mood: “We didn’t lose the league that day,” he argued. “We lost it in March, when we had a disastrous run of home form.”

By dusk, the balloons were down and the gates shut. The league title had slipped away, but something else had been rekindled: belief.

All eyes were now fixed on Wednesday night’s play-off semi-final at home to Dover Athletic. A second chance.

CHAPTER THREE - THE DOVER GAME

The four days between Saturday 26 April and Wednesday 30 April felt like an eternity for Billericay supporters. Time seemed to stretch in that strange void, part hangover from the heartbreak of Cheshunt, part nervous anticipation. There was still a route to promotion, but it would have to be taken the hard way, through the pressure cooker of the play-offs.

Dover Athletic stood in the way. Once runaway leaders, they had stumbled badly through winter before clinging to a play-off place on the final day. The Blues had home advantage, and they had beaten them earlier in the season.

“We were able to get them in for a Monday night session,” McCann recalled. “We had a longer meeting than usual, to address the season and the disappointment of Saturday, but most importantly, to get the players re-aligned. There was a flatness when everyone turned up, for sure, but I made sure that by the moment they walked out the changing room there was a bubbly feel. It was still a work in motion, but we still had a brilliant opportunity to be promoted.”

Tickets sold out days in advance. Segregation was in place; 400 Dover fans were making the 84-mile trip for a Wednesday night under the bright Essex lights. The queues at the turnstiles felt familiar, the air charged with the same blend of optimism and anxiety as four days earlier.

“Oh no, not again!” joked Butt, remembering past play-off heartbreak – Billericay had never been successful in the play-offs.

“Personally, I think both the league champions and runners-up should be promoted,” Butt continued, “but others like the jeopardy.”

The terraces were already humming when the teams emerged for the warm-up. This time, the Blunts Wall Road end, previously a sea of blue on Saturday, was packed with Dover’s white shirts. The London Road end brimmed with locals craning for a view. Sixteen lads, a lump of leather, and the town’s hopes all in the same place again.

By kick-off, 2,857 spectators were inside New Lodge. Many more watched via a paid livestream. McCann knew the contrast between the two sides’ mindsets could matter.

“I thought we played against a team that had the elation and highs of making the play-offs,” McCann said. “And they were playing against a team that had the disappointment and dejection of not getting over the line. But we levelled up very quickly and definitely showed our mettle.”

The match began cautiously, both sides testing each other without overcommitting. The first half was cagey, filled with half-chances that sparked noise but never truly threatened either keeper. Tension replaced spectacle, as every turnover drew groans and every loose ball brought a half-step forward from the stands.

If the first half had been about holding ground, the second was about searching for a break. Dover had a scramble hooked off the line by Blues skipper Matt Johnson, while at the other end Tommy Davis thundered a header against the crossbar with minutes left in normal time.

It felt increasingly like the night would turn on one mistake or a moment of brilliance – or perhaps both. The three shrills of the referee’s whistle brought extra time: goalless after 90 minutes.

“I think a lot of credit needs to go to the changing room,” McCann said. “On the back of such disappointment, for the way they came back.”

Elsewhere, drama was unfolding in the other semi-final, as news filtered through that Dartford had scored a stoppage-time equaliser against Cray Valley PM to force extra time. Billericay were desperate to avoid similar chaos.

Five minutes into extra time, it felt like a prayer had been answered. Striker Femi Akinwande’s shot cannoned off the post, rebounded off Dover keeper Mitch Walker’s back, and trickled agonisingly over the line.

From the far end, there was a moment’s hesitation before the realisation hit, then the roar was volcanic. 2,400 fans released the tension and frustration that had built not just over the past two hours, but across the last four days, the last nine months, the last three long years. A goal forged from persistence and a slice of fortune; it handed the Blues the edge they had been chasing.

But football’s oldest cliché proved true: you’re most vulnerable just after you’ve scored. Less than 60 seconds after the restart, Billericay midfielder Jack Paxman conceded a cheap free kick. Dover’s Alfie Matthews stepped up, curled it past the wall and Sam Donkin, and wheeled away towards the travelling fans. The sudden swing, from elation to devastation, mirrored the Cheshunt game all too closely.

The final 20 minutes of extra time were agony. Every clearance was cheered like a goal, every pass greeted with audible pressure if it went astray. Players looked drained, heavy-legged, their decision-making slowed by fatigue. Phones beeped with alerts from elsewhere – Dartford were through to the play-off final after staging a remarkable comeback on the other side of the QEII Bridge.

And then, with 119 minutes gone, Dover won another free kick as Tyrell Miller-Rodney hauled down his man 25 yards from goal. It was soft, particularly as Billericay were denied what looked like a stonewall free kick a mere 30 seconds earlier for a shirt pull on winger Ashley Nzala.

Matthews placed the ball once more, the stadium holding its breath, every heartbeat in sync with the fading hope of a penalty shootout; a final lottery, if nothing else.

From three sides of New Lodge, Blues supporters spotted the problem immediately. The wall wasn’t set right. Billericay goalkeeping coach James Smith was on his feet in the dugout, waving his arms like a man possessed, desperate to catch his number one’s eye but powerless from 50 yards away.

Donkin had gambled on Matthews curling the free kick towards the goalkeeper’s side. Instead, Dover’s number eight whipped it around the wall, the ball skidding inside the near post and taking with it Donkin – and Billericay’s season.

The Dover end erupted; the home end was struck mute. There was barely time for a restart before the final whistle cut through the evening air.

2-1 Dover. Game over. Season over.

CHAPTER FOUR - THE RESPONSE

On the walk back up Blunts Wall Road, Andy Butt kept his head down. Behind him, the glow from the New Lodge floodlights still hung in the night air, but the noise had long since faded. Dover’s players were in the dressing room, celebrating a play-off win they had snatched in extra time. Billericay’s season – nine months of relentless pursuit – was over.

“It was a lonely walk back to the car at the end of a long day and a long, long season,” Butt said. “I never gave up hope, but the footballing gods didn’t look kindly on us that night.”

Ben Robinson packed up his camera and headed for the exit gates. For him, the manner of the defeat was familiar. “Frustrating, but not surprising given how play-off games usually go when there’s a big underdog with no pressure,” he said. “I definitely thought we were good enough to get promoted… The way we lost was also painful.”

Supporters hundreds of miles away felt it too. Ben Morris watched the stream from Yorkshire, unable to get back to Essex for the game. He admitted he was “annoyed” but strangely accepting. “On the day we didn’t do enough to win,” he said. “It was much easier to take than the final day of the regular season.”

Others couldn’t shake it. Paul Jennings described it as the hardest he’d been hit by a result in years. Sarah Lane simply called it “gutting… to come so close and fall at the final hurdle was tough to take.”

While those on the terraces quietly crept away from New Lodge, those in the dressing room were left confronting the physical and emotional wounds of nine months of graft ending on a disputed free kick.

Defender Tommy Davis, 22, had battled through injury to be fit for the final couple of games. He spoke with the composure of someone years older.

“Of course, it’s tough mentally to deal with the Cheshunt and Dover games,” he said. “But at the end of the day, there are a lot worse moments going on in the world… There’s nothing we can do about it now. It’s just time to try to win the league next year.”

For manager Gary McCann, the days after Dover were unlike anything he had experienced in his decades in non-league football.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a couple of weeks like it,” he recalled. “I took four or five days where I didn’t even look at my phone. I just completely detached myself from the football world… Football felt like the devil.”

McCann’s phone didn’t sleep. Messages poured in – from players, supporters, ex-players, even former chairmen. “It was overwhelming,” McCann said. “But I was just in that place where the disappointment of the Saturday and the Wednesday had compounded a mindset that was on the floor.”

He hadn’t spoken to the board, but in his head, McCann was already deciding what needed to happen. “I had another year on my contract, but we did have a break in there – so the club could’ve parted ways, and I could’ve parted ways,” he said.

That Friday, McCann spoke with co-owner Alex Morrissey. They met again on Sunday. “The club wanted to act. It needed to act. It wanted to see that I was prepared to act and move the club forward. It wasn’t ready to just stand still.”

Looking back, McCann believes he can pinpoint where the title slipped away. “To lose the title by one goal is pretty hard to take,” he said. “If there are three moments that truly stand out… it was those three back-to-back home games against Chichester, Wingate & Cray.”

Those defeats ended a 12-month unbeaten home run in the league. “And that was the wrong time. Without question, the timing was crap,” McCann continued. “In all three games, if we’d turned any of them into draws, it would’ve been enough.”

The squad had come under fire from the expectant fanbase at various points throughout the season, but that noise grew louder during the torrid spring run. McCann acknowledged it:

“It was the most noise and criticism we received over the course of the season – and rightly so,” the Blues boss said. “But our home form had been so good prior… It was very hard to criticise the changing room.”

The consensus was clear: the team had been good, but not quite good enough.

Perhaps the hardest aspect of such heartache is finding the willpower to mentally realign, something often unseen outside the game. With the club just hours out from the most significant defeat in recent history, the focus inside New Lodge shifted to 2025/26. A third chance. While so many were still wallowing in the disappointment of those four days in April, McCann and his staff got to work.

Swift decisions were made. Half the squad would be retained. The rest of the summer would be about finding players to, in McCann’s words, “hit the ground running and be ready for what’s required to wear a Billericay shirt.”

McCann was after marquee signings – and he got them. Sixteen days after Dover, in came Liam Nash, a prolific goalscorer from the National League South. He was swiftly joined by further additions from England’s sixth tier: Ryan Scott from Hornchurch, Ryan Blackman and Jazzi Barnum-Bobb from Chelmsford, Alfie Cerulli from Hemel Hempstead. Players were actively leaving higher divisions to join McCann’s Billericay.

Add to that Chatham Town captain Jack Evans, 6’6” midfield anchor Tyrese Owen, and electric winger Troy Howard, and Billericay had rebuilt before pre-season even began. Many rivals were yet to make a single signing.

“I think our recruitment has been exactly where I wanted it to be,” McCann said. “I’m really happy with what we’ve assembled, and we’re ready to attack that third year and try and gain promotion.”

The squad will be leaner – 18 or 19 players instead of 22 or 23 – but McCann believes that means more unity, more minutes for everyone, and fewer passengers throughout the squad.

The message is simple: in it together. The new mantra has littered social media pages and promotional posts throughout the summer. Players, fans, board, united in pursuit of the National League South.

CHAPTER FIVE - THE FUTURE

The wounds of the spring have not healed. They may never truly heal. At Billericay Town, the scars of a promotion bid that fell agonisingly short remain visible in the silences, in the flinch when the final day is mentioned, in the nervous hesitations whenever hope is voiced too loudly.

Yet football, as ever, has its way of rolling forward. Sixty-nine days after that fateful night in April, a couple of hundred Blues supporters filtered back down Blunts Wall Road, heading for New Lodge once again. The sun was out on an early July evening, and the opposition was modest: Hutton, their ground-sharing neighbours, three divisions below. The occasion scarcely mattered, an opening pre-season game littered with trialists and youth players. What mattered was that football was back, and so were the rituals.

At the turnstiles and in the stands, the choreography was familiar. Ben Robinson arrived first, lugging a bag of camera equipment, spare SD cards, and freshly charged microphones. In the gantry, Paul Jennings prepared the tannoy, armed with a pre-match playlist and a team sheet.

Out by the tunnel, steward Andy Butt adjusted his stopwatch, while Rob Street took his customary position in the main stand. Football, at this level, resets itself not through grand gestures but through quiet repetition.

If last season was defined by heartbreak, this one opens with expectation. The bookmakers list Billericay as favourites. For some, that status feels like a millstone, for others, a badge of respect.

Robinson sits somewhere between the two. “It hasn’t changed my love for the club,” he says with a shrug, “but it’s definitely made me more optimistic. We’re once again looked at as the favourites, and that’s not a bad place to be.”

Optimism runs strong in the fanbase. Lifelong fan Ben Morris admits he’s “supremely confident,” before correcting himself, wary of tempting fate: “I don’t want to be too confident, but it feels like we’re building something special. It might finally be our season.”

Jennings, the voice over the PA, is blunter. “Very,” he says when asked how confident he feels. “We should win the league with the squad we have. But football is never that simple, is it?”

Butt, five decades a supporter and now a fixture in his steward’s polo shirt, is less bullish. “We’re going to be the team everyone else wants to beat,” he warns. “On paper the close-season signings seem strong, but will they deliver? I’m hoping for an over-the-moon end, but I fear another sick-as-a-parrot conclusion. Prove me wrong. I’m 100% behind Gary, his team, and his players.”

In truth, what unites them all is not blind belief but an unshakable attachment. Morris likens it to a family. “It offers an escape from the struggles of life,” he says. “Once you enter the ground, nothing else matters other than getting three points.” Jennings goes further: “After my family and friends, it’s the most important thing in my life.”

Butt, reflecting on half a century of loyalty, puts it in perspective. “Football is my big release from other things,” he explains. “The diary is arranged around the fixtures when they come out in July. It’s come a long way from standing in a field behind a rope back in the 1970s. But I cannot forget where it started for me and others. That’s what keeps you here.”

Among the players, there is no room for romance. The talk is sharper, and the goals are clearer.

Centre-half Tommy Davis has no appetite for caveats. “All I care about this year is winning the league, that’s it,” he says. “Of course I care about my own performances, but when the season’s over, all I want is the trophy and promotion.”

The memory of falling short by a single goal still gnaws. “We finished on a real low,” Davis admits. “But as a collective it’s added fuel for the boys who stayed, and it’s made the new additions want to fulfil the success we set out for last season.”

One of the new additions is winger Troy Howard, who made the move north of the Thames from Kent side Sittingbourne. The 23-year-old tricky wide man explained what brought him to New Lodge.

“The fanbase and the project brought me here,” he said. “The set-up is the best I’ve had so far, very professional. The boys have welcomed me well. I’ll bring pace, directness, togetherness, quality.”

And Howard is aiming high in his first season in Essex: “I’ve set myself the goal of 30 contributions and a league title.”

If Davis speaks with steel, Howard speaks with spark. Both voices reflect a dressing room stripped of excuses. There’s no more second chances now, everyone at the club knows what this season must bring.

In the boardroom, Gary McCann weighs every word carefully. He has now managed 107 competitive games for Billericay, enough to earn the goodwill of supporters, but goodwill does not equate to glory. He knows it. They know it.

“The highlights and the proudest moments,” he says, “are still to come. I was brought into this football club to deliver a promotion, and anything else doesn’t really come close. I don’t think anything else truly will suffice.”

He allows himself a moment of reflection. “There’s been a huge amount of progression, on and off the pitch. The satisfaction I take is that this club is more connected and more together than it’s been in eight, ten, twelve years. And I think that comes from the football pitch, from the changing room, from the management office. We’ve all played our part in that.”

And so, the club marches on. With cameras charged, bacon rolls eaten, stopwatches strapped on, microphones tested. With nerves and excitement and the weight of expectation pressing across the terraces, Billericay are ready to return to action and chase that elusive promotion once more.

The pain of last year still lingers. The mockery on social media still bubbles. But the faith, the rituals, the community, they’ll remain forever at New Lodge.

For Davis and Howard, for Robinson and Lane and Morris and Jennings and Butt and Street, and for the hundreds who call New Lodge home on a Saturday afternoon, the target is unambiguous. Not to survive. Not to compete. But to win. To deliver the one moment that has eluded them for the last three seasons.

And then there’s McCann. Humble enough to admit that, for all the strides made, he doesn’t yet believe he can claim a true highlight until the job is finished, until promotion is secured.

The Billericay boss is ready. He doesn’t flinch when the question of pressure arises.

“The highs and the proud moments, I’d like to think, will come in year three,” he says, already daring to look ahead.

“We’re very much geared up to maybe having this conversation in eight, ten months’ time, where I can say: There’s my proud moment. There’s my highlight. I’ve delivered what I’ve been brought in to do. That’s the focus. That’s the mindset.”