Stevenage’s Statement of Intent: Is This the Season It All Clicks?

As this season's League One season slowly eeps forward, we are starting to see who the favourites are for the league title.

And as it currently stands, the team in pole position are minnows who have never even reached the Championship before.

Even though teams such as Bolton, Cardiff City, Peterborough, and many more are currently in League One—teams that have sustained success in yesteryears—it is Stevenage FC who are currently leading the way.

When I first published an article on Stevenage’s great start to the season just under two months ago, they had won all four of their games in League One; naturally, they lost their next to Huddersfield.

But that one loss has remained the only one they have suffered.

Since 23rd August, Stevange have dropped just two points after drawing with Mansfield Town. They have beaten the likes of Luton Town, Exeter City and Leyton Orient in this time.

The Lamex Stadium

Home of Stevenage Football Club 🔴

Currently sitting top of League One ⬆️ #StevenageFC pic.twitter.com/lRwobFZ7xc

— AllAboutLeagueOne (@LeagueOne25) October 14, 2025

19/20 Season

It is a surreal feeling for Boro fans. Just five years ago, the club was given a lifeline.

With the COVID-19 pandemic disturbing not just the entire world but also the football season, the 19/20 League Two season was cancelled. The final table would be decided on a points-per-game basis.

Following Bury’s financial collapse in August 2019, only one team would be relegated from League Two—and with Stevenage in 24th place, they were officially demoted.

At that point in time, Steveange were 10 points adrift.

So, how in any way were they saved?

Well, despite the Boro being in turmoil, another club was doing even worse.

At the time of the pandemic, Macclesfield sat in 22nd place on 36 points. They had finished 14 points above Stevenage and had secured a third successive season in League Two.

Unpaid wages, postponed fixtures, and repeated winding-up orders plagued them throughout the season, and multiple EFL sanctions resulted in points deductions along the way.

Even so, Macclesfield still sat above Stevenage—until August, just a month before the new League Two season was set to begin. One final point deduction pushed them below Stevenage, sparing the Boro from relegation and giving them a lifeline they could hardly have imagined months earlier.

Subsequently, a month later, Maccesfield was liquidated. With hundreds of thousands of pounds being owed to creditors, their relegation was the final nail in the coffin.

📝 Details of today's Appeal Hearing 👇https://t.co/G33vvNU3Lh

— Macclesfield FC (C) (@thesilkmen) August 11, 2020

And for Stevange, it saved them.

For the next two years, they continued to struggle. They finished a respectable 14th the season after, but one year later, they flirted with the idea of relegation when they finished 21st.

But since getting promoted in the 2022/23 season, Stevange have held strong in League One and put up two fantastic performances.

In their first season, they would finish 9th, and last year they sat mid-table in 14th.

Better Times

But now, this is the time to be a Stevange fan.

7,228 packed into the Lamex Stadium for their latest league fixture against local rivals Luton Town, the most since the Boro welcomed Premier League titans Newcastle United to an FA Cup fourth round fixture back in 1998.

And it is manager Alex Revell who is leading this current Stevange side to glory. The 42-year-old, who ended his career at the Boro, also graduated in sports science when he was a player. The mix of his management skills and his knowledge from his degree has turned him into a Swiss Army Knife of a manager. In an interview with the Guardian, Revell explained that “Warm-ups, running, no one likes them. I dived into it. I did video analysis because we didn’t have any analysts when we got promoted out of League Two.”

With matches against Bradford and Lincoln coming up—two sides that both reside in the top six of the league—Revell and his men's determination will be put to the test.

But as it stands, they sit one point clear with at least a game in hand of every other team within the top seven.

Only time will tell if Steveange, a minnow club who have never dreamed of even reaching the second tier, can hold on for the rest of the season and reach the Championship.

But one thing is for sure: this is the greatest time to pledge your allegiance to the Boro.