Nothing too exciting this one but it's literally a five mins walk from me so had an hour and wandered out the door to it. Plus I like derelict sports grounds, due to be my job being a groundsman. It is interesting to see how quick finely manicured turf can go wild.
The club is a fair size with 22 clubs and 1,200 members, the old ground was deemed to small with just two pitches. These pitches also lay on clay so I can imagine it was either very wet or rock hard. The club has been playing on these pitches since the early eighties and they played there last match here in 2018. They moved to a new site in the town consisting of thirty acres of land and numerous pitches, which are well drained. A brand new clubhouse has been built and consists of hospitality and dining areas, bars and a kitchen area. They have built a terrace on top so people can watch from an upper balcony. The new club and pitches cost 4.5 million to build and the land was donated to them. The old club has got permission for ninety mixed houses on it, with loads more on the second pitch.
The clubhouse was nothing too exciting. As expected it was pitch black in most of it and been ripped about. Surprisingly though I did not see one bit of graffiti inside.
The old brushes to remove the mud from the muddy boots.
Looking out over pitch one and the main pitch. Always something surreal about overgrown pitches.
Pitch two does not have any advertising boards or rails.
In the corner was this machine getting overgrown. I thought it was just a standard roller. But I could see like columns and pads at the front what does not look like a normal roller. So I looked it up and it's a roller scrum machine were players could train on their scrums, what an ingenious thing.
The club is a fair size with 22 clubs and 1,200 members, the old ground was deemed to small with just two pitches. These pitches also lay on clay so I can imagine it was either very wet or rock hard. The club has been playing on these pitches since the early eighties and they played there last match here in 2018. They moved to a new site in the town consisting of thirty acres of land and numerous pitches, which are well drained. A brand new clubhouse has been built and consists of hospitality and dining areas, bars and a kitchen area. They have built a terrace on top so people can watch from an upper balcony. The new club and pitches cost 4.5 million to build and the land was donated to them. The old club has got permission for ninety mixed houses on it, with loads more on the second pitch.
The clubhouse was nothing too exciting. As expected it was pitch black in most of it and been ripped about. Surprisingly though I did not see one bit of graffiti inside.
The old brushes to remove the mud from the muddy boots.
Looking out over pitch one and the main pitch. Always something surreal about overgrown pitches.
Pitch two does not have any advertising boards or rails.
In the corner was this machine getting overgrown. I thought it was just a standard roller. But I could see like columns and pads at the front what does not look like a normal roller. So I looked it up and it's a roller scrum machine were players could train on their scrums, what an ingenious thing.
