“We will not be playing Bracknell Town” and other admin errors

Chelmsford City have confirmed they will not be playing Bracknell Town in pre season.

So what, pretty normal in pre season, these fixtures change pretty regularly and often at the drop of a hat around the pre-season calendar.

But the reason why the Vanarama National League South club won’t be playing the Robins is one we are oh so familiar with here at Football in Berkshire.

You see, Chelmsford are actually playing Brackley Town and an admin error meant the wrong club was included in official communication: “This came down to an admin error where it was communicated to everyone that we were playing Bracknell, only to receive word from Brackley that we should be playing them,” a club statement said.

Easily done. Countless times over the years when compiling Hellenic League content we’ve written Bracknell when referring to Brackley Town Saints.

Maidstone United

It’s not just Press Officers getting their clubs mixed up. Regular victims of this sort of thing on social media are Maidenhead/Maidstone United who are regularly confused with each other. Usually with the prefix ‘we should be beating teams like..’

Ashford Town

This maybe apocryphal, but prior to 2010 when Ashford Town in Kent became Ashford United, there was a story regularly told of a group of players who turned up the wrong side of the M25 when they should have been at Ashford Town (Middlesex).

Or vice-versa. It’s a good story.

There’s almost certainly a story somewhere of a set of fans heading for a long weekend away on the Isle of Wight when they should have been in South Wales for Newport while we’re absolutely sure, given the distances, Abingdon United and Abingdon Town have been confused for each other along with Bedfont FC and Bedfont Sports.

Thanks Sheffield Wednesday

As recently as March 2025, the BBC reported Sheffield Wednesday accidentally sending an allocation of away tickets to non-league Oxford City, rather than who they were playing, Oxford United in EFL League One.

“A non-league football team has poked fun at Sheffield Wednesday after it mistakenly sent tickets for an upcoming Championship game to the wrong club,” reported BBC Oxfordshire.

“Oxford United are due to travel to Hillsborough next month, but the 4,000 away tickets were instead sent to Oxford City, a team that play in National League North, four divisions lower than their city neighbours.”

Back to the original Chelmsford vs Bracknell story – which certainly had no blame attached to the Robins, but perhaps they are actually playing Cheltenham?