THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
BEDFORD & THE COMMUNITY
Bringing the story up-to-date, Last season saw Bedford Town claim promotion in May via the play-offs into the Southern League Premier Central division, the third tier of non-league football. They were supported by their loyal fan base, with The Eagles boasting the highest average attendance in their division last season.
The club hasn’t simply rested on its laurels in the closed season. The Eyrie Stadium’s grass pitch has been replaced with a state-of-the-art 3G surface which will provide first class training and match day playing conditions regardless of the fickle English weather.
As well as the flagship first team and an under-18s side, Bedford Town has a quite astonishing 32 youth teams, comprising around 320 players. Ranging from under-9s to under-18s, they compete in local and regional leagues on Saturdays and Sundays. The new 3G pitch will play a role here as well, allowing youth teams to play at the main stadium and further strengthening the links between all parts of the club. It will also be available for community use.
Speaking of community, Bedford Town also has strong links to local businesses in Bedford. The front-of-shirt sponsors for the coming season will be Creams Café Bedford, which is part of the UK’s biggest dessert brand with around 100 stores across the UK.
FROM THE CHAIRMAN
Looking to the future, Bedford Town Chairman Adrian Brown says that the immediate priority is to retain their Step Three status:
“We don’t intend to repeat the season before last when relegation followed a promotion season. We’ve made all the preparations to ensure we have a squad competitive in the Southern League Premier Central.”
Longer term, Adrian is clear that while ambition is healthy, too often it can lead clubs with eyes bigger than their wallets into financial difficulties. There’s no danger of that at Bedford Town, however. As he says:
“Everything we are doing is about sustainability, Growing the income of the club so that we can compete at the highest levels the club can afford to play at.”
KAPPA X BEDFORD TOWN FC
Turning to the kit deal, Adrian points to a combination of factors that made the club choose Kappa for 2024-25. First, he says it makes financial sense:
“Kappa provides the opportunity to actually make a reasonable margin on replica shirt sales and offers a larger range of leisure clothing to sell to our youth and other supporters, something our other supplier couldn’t provide.”
He has also been impressed by the quality of Kappa kit:
“The quality of the clothing – the material – is equal or better to other suppliers. So we’re able to sell a better product at a reasonable price and make a margin which we weren’t able to do before. The way the kit is manufactured, with the badge and the logos printed into the shirt means there are no issues with them peeling off in the wash or embroidery rubbing on the players.
It Means we can have a design incorporated within the shirt – in our case with the Eagles logo - which makes a very personal, very professional shirt.”
Adrian is looking forward to working with Kappa in the long term as he feels that the brand is more open to working collaboratively with smaller clubs:
“If the relationship grows and develops in the right direction we would hope for a long-term relationship with Kappa and maybe take part in the development of future products. The giant brands will just listen to the big clubs in England and Europe while the smaller clubs will just get what they are given.”
Chairman Brown sums up the Bedford Town ethos perfectly:
“We are who we are, we understand what we do, and we want to give the people of Bedford something to be proud of. We want them to be able to wear really nice replica shirts, jackets, caps and so on. We’re not ‘Billy Big-Boots’ people round here.”
