This is an interesting one, with The Bridge travelling down the road to Dagenham to visit “The Bobby Moore Sports Hub” to face Athletic Newham. I can’t say that this new facility looks like a football stadium, but it’s a 6-million-pound venture, and the 4G pitch will enable the game to go ahead whatever the January weather throws at it.

As for the team that now calls it home, Athletic Newham are currently in 10th place and have 26 points from their 20 games, 6 more than the Bridge. 7 wins, 5 draws, and 8 defeats have produced 34 goals for and 28 against for a +6 GD. From their 9 home matches, they have 2 wins, 3 draws, and 4 defeats, with a GD of +1 (14 for and 13 against) which is 16th for the ESL, so it’s not inconceivable that The Bridge could add to those 4 home defeats, but we shall see come Saturday. The Bridge away are 2 wins and 7 defeats, with 14 scored and 23 conceded (-9), so take your pick and place your bets…

Here’s what Atletico have been doing in their last six matches…
Athletic Newham – season 24/25 – The Last Six
(most recent results first)
Buckhurst Hill v Athletic Newham
Match postponed

Athletic Newham 4 Little Oakley 0
An emphatic 4-0 home victory for Atletico to start 2025. Hassan Saleh Togba with 2, Julian Sarmiento-Ramirez and Victor Ferrini are the scorers. The win is their first in six.

Ilford 1 Athletic Newham 1
Ilford’s Adama Konate levels George Rankin’s opener in a share of the spoils.

Athletic Newham 1 FC Clacton 1
Points dropped against the bottom club who don’t win many and Alex Kozak saves it for Atletico with an 88th-minute equaliser after Tyrese Miller puts The Seasiders one up.

Athletic Newham 1 White Ensign 2
Leonardo Luis De Carvalho Pedro puts the home team one up with a 20th-minute penalty before Ellis Devereux equalises and midfield maestro Jon Evans gets the winner.

Athletic Newham 2 Great Wakering Rovers 3
GWR are 3-0 up with two goals from Dominic Locke and the other from Ben Search before Atletico storm back to make it 2-3 but it’s not quite enough. Leonardo Luis De Carvalho Pedro and Victor Ferrini are on target for the home side.

Benfleet 3 Athletic Newham 0
A bad day at Woodside Park for Atletico who are emphatically defeated 3-0. Goalscorers for Benfleet are Nathan Saunders, Sonny Hartman and Toby Dickinson.

First Team Squad & appearances:
Player Appearances
1 Abdul Khamis 23
2 Alex Kozak 23
3 Leonardo Luis De Carvalho Pedro 23
4 George Rankin 22
5 Louis Hiobi 21
6 Anderson Silva Baro 21
7 Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed 20
8 Charlie Campbell 17
9 Derek O'Halem 17
10 Rodney Dame 16
11 Jaime Obama Nvumba 16
12 Hassan Saleh Togba 16
13 Daniel Udanoh 16
14 Julian Sarmiento-Ramirez 11
15 James Runham 10
16 Victor Ferrini 9
17 Harold Adu-Poku 8
18 Idris Aminu 8
19 Custodio Junior 8
20 Tychique Kinkela 8
21 Edgar Musoke 8
22 ‪Sebastia‬n Barford 6‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
23 Christopher De Nguidjol 5
24 Isaac Sijuade 5
25 Kai Torres 5
26 Alessio Akabuogu 4
27 Calvyn Massala 4
28 Peter Oyetunji 4
29 Melvin Kambamba 3
30 Aundre Wholas-Spencer 3
31 Lindrit Beqiri 2
32 Kwesi Botchey 2
33 Vladyslav Karuchok 2
34 Inesh Sumithran 2
35 Jahzeen Vassal 2
36 Zayshaun Asamoah 1
37 Imanol Beta 1
38 Hamid Bun-Seisay 1
39 Noe Dju Nangura 1
40 Kaleb Kadimashi 1
41 Eric Negraru 1
42 Adil Raman 1

Last Season:
Atletico finished 11th in the ESL last season with 52 points. The Bridge finished in 12th with 49.

The teams met twice during the season.
Game one was on the 28th of August 2023 and was a 2-1 home win for The Bridge with Michael Agboola scoring both the Bridge goals and Jacques Leurs was on target for the visitors.

Game Two on the 20th of January 2024 was also a 2-1 win for The Bridge. Usman Adeniji and Michael Agboola (again) scored The Bridge goals and Idris Aminu scored for the home team.

This Season:
On Saturday 10th of August 2024 at the T.J. Cottis, The Bridge were beaten 6-1, with Aideen Brown scoring the one in the 95th minute. By this time, Jamie Obama Nvumba had scored a hat-trick and Leonardo Luis De Carvalho Pedro, Alex Kozak and James Runham had added the other three…so revenge is due!

Club Facts:
Founded: 2015
Ground: Bobby Moore Sports Hub, Parsloes Park, Dagenham
Chairman: Kennedy Tavares
First Team Manager: Diogo Nobre

Club History
The club was founded in 2015 as a youth team, then known as Lopes Tavares London, before moving into adult football the following season, joining the Premier Division of the Essex Alliance Football League. They played at the Memorial Recreation Ground in West Ham. They finished eighth in their first season and fifth in 2017–18, before successfully applying to join the new Division One South of the Eastern Counties Football League for the 2018–19 season. On 27 August 2020, the club announced the renaming of the club to Athletic Newham. In 2021, the club were promoted to the Essex Senior League based on their results in the abandoned 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons.

Ground
Following time at the Memorial Recreation Ground, the club moved to the Terence McMillan Stadium in Plaistow.

On 12 September 2024, Athletic Newham announced they would be moving out of Newham, moving to The Bobby Moore Sports Hub, Parsloes Park in Dagenham.

Athletic Newham Football Club have finally sat down and spoke about how we got to where we are now and WHY the badge and the color of the kits.

We had a chat with Zerozero about the history of the club and below has been translated into English.

England hosts many emblems with rich and magnanimous histories in the king’s sport. Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool are some of the examples associated with increased power, with a rich history, which certainly tends to increase with the progress of the carriage. Numerous teams aspire to their respective pedestal, while others dream, in the first instance, of the label of ‘professional team’.

Founded in 2015, Athletic Newham was formed under the thumb of a Portuguese man. Despite its short existence, the British team has been climbing divisions at breakneck speed. Among multiple transformations over the years, there was something that did not change: the institution’s own identity. The complex continues to be a shelter for athletes with Portuguese origins. An authentic launch pad for players who want to go far in the competitive paradigm.

Ulisses Lopes Tavares. A simple man who, like so many others, decided to pack his bags and head somewhere else. At the airport, Lisbon marked the departure location. England, London more specifically, was the destination on the flight chart. When he settled in British lands, our protagonist already had a structured idea in mind: creating a football club.

«When I arrived here from Portugal, as I work as an agent, I had the need to form this emblem to provide a showcase for my players to showcase themselves. At the same time, I wanted him to start gaining momentum in English football. As such, I inserted my surname, my personal trait, in the name of the institution», said, in the first instance, Ulisses.
«In bureaucratic terms, creating a club in England is much easier than in Portugal. The process was very quick. The problem is finding your own space to play and form the social body of the institution. However, it was something I achieved, thanks to the help of several Portuguese people who live in London. I ended up being the president, my brother was the secretary, then we got a treasurer, and so on, until we fulfilled a series of requirements that were proposed to us», he added.

This clear desire to give a platform to its agents led to the creation of Lopes Tavares FC in 2015. Without a doubt, a name that is notable for its strangeness, but which quickly generates curiosity about the history and origins of the organization. The truth is that the English paradigm is quite full, formed by multiple divisions that precede the reality of professional football.

As such, the respective team began to take its first steps in District Championships, with the games being held in a small park, every Saturday. However, the most Portuguese team in England climbed divisions with some regularity, through an excellent management model. However, Anderson Baró, the main reference of the London group over the years, highlighted another condiment for collective success.

Baró, after a short spell at Atlético Povoense, went after his dream in Sporting’s youth categories. The striker had the opportunity to grow alongside several famous names in Portuguese football, such as Thierry Correia and Daniel Bragança. Rúben Vinagre or Elves Baldé. However, the colleague who stood out most in this group is not surprising.
«Rafael Leão was at a more advanced level compared to everyone else. I was already waiting for you to get very far. At the time, he already had great speed and had many technical arguments. It was always very difficult for other teams to stop him», he guaranteed.

However, after failing to establish himself in the Leonine group, he went to Sacavenense, his last stop on Portuguese soil. At the age of 17, young Anderson left, together with his family, for the United Kingdom, in search of a better life. It was necessary to find a new refuge in an unknown area and, as expected, the task ended up not being easy: “I wanted to play for longer, but I didn’t know where to go. In the first phase, I went to train with Charlton Athletic’s under-23s. So I tried my luck at West Ham’s academy. They were very closed contexts for me to be able to enter. I started to give up on the idea of playing football.”

However, when he least expected it, someone reached out to him: “A friend of mine invited me to go to Lopes Tavares FC for training. He was managed by Ulysses himself. I didn’t know him well, I had never spoken to him. However, after the session, he said ‘I like you, the way you are’. From then on, our relationship grew and I accompanied him on this adventure.»

«He gave me a place to demonstrate my quality. He is truly a person that I admire a lot. In fact, I cannot express my gratitude for everything the club’s owners did for me. They taught me to fall in love with football again. Even in financial terms, they always showed concern, especially at the beginning when I had several difficulties in supporting myself. They helped me search for a house, which is very difficult to find at a reasonable price here,” he said.

It is not only through chance that players secure their place in the amateur team, especially with the drastic evolution of the squad over the years. zerozero’s extensive database ends up playing an important role in hiring policy. According to Ulisses Tavares, footballers who are interested in joining the exciting boat must send the link to their profiles on the website, so that managers and coaches can analyze their individual trajectories.

Records
Highest league position: 6th in Essex Senior League, 2022–23
Best FA Vase performance: Fourth round, 2021–22
Best FA Cup performance: Preliminary Round, 2021–22

An interesting trip to the new Bobby Moore facility where there may not be many stands, but they aren’t really needed as Atletico average just 45 for home matches. Their last win prior to that win last Saturday against Little Oakley was way back on November 9th at Halstead Town so, I know, I know, I shouldn't get my hopes up too much but…

The form guide is interesting as shown below and reads:
The Bridge: 2 wins; 0 draws; 4 defeats; For 8; Against 16; GD -8; Points 6
Atletico: 1 win; 2 draws; 3 defeats; For 9; Against 10; GD -1; Points 5

So, both teams are in similar form, and it gets even more interesting!

The Bridge have won just two away games this season so it’s about time we added to that tally and what better place to do that than at the Bobby Moore Sports Hub on Saturday? It’s going to be a good old proper football day, cold and crisp, so bring your thermals and something hot to drink (or alcohol in a hip flask!) and…