Before You Go : Lower League Life and Love at the Lamex

John Aizlewood and his 14-year-old son, Oscar, attended every Stevenage game of the 2024/25 season, home and away, league and cups. This is not merely the story of a season in the life of League One's smallest club; it’s the story of a father and son bonding through football, before the son takes his GCSEs and goes on to become a man.

Before You Go is a love story between father and son – of their love of football and of Stevenage FC. By award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster John Aizlewood. This compelling book offers a unique, fresh adventure into the heart and soul of lower-league football, as seen through the eyes of a vastly experienced, well-travelled football writer and his teenage son:John and his 14-year-old son, Oscar, attend every Stevenage FC – aka Boro – game of the 2024/25 season, home and away, league and cups, the narrative flowing from Stevenage FC’s seasonThey travel by car, train and coach – and they explore every location they visit, whether they’re eating Blackpool’s finest fish’n’chips or smelling Rotherham’s indoor marketThey stand on the grave of a queen, they shout themselves hoarse, they gaze in wonder at team buses, they marvel at Stonehenge, squabble about tactics and about each other, and they eat too many culinarily challenged piesThe book provides a cultural snapshot of England (and Wrexham) in 2024 and ’25 – the fixture list decides where they go, but each location has its own storyBefore You Go is not only the saga of a season in the life of the smallest club in League One. It’s also the story of a father and son bonding and sharing their lives through football, before Oscar takes his GCSEs and goes on to become a man and before John moves, rather more reluctantly, into later life.