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Post by Better things to do in life on Mar 18, 2019 15:10:53 GMT
The Athletic Ground That was a venue for the All England tennis championship before it moved to Wimbledon Who actually remembers the old Athletic Ground? I remember an "official" figure of 10,000 fans squeezed into it for the 1978 for the FA Cup replay against Charlton who were then riding high in the equivalent of the Championship, and we were in the Conference. The floodlights were on for so long - as people started arriving so early - that they failed due to overheating before the end of the game, which we eventually lost 1-2.
The London Road end could have been huge if the terracing had continued all the way round, not just an odd "Slice" in the corner, and it had a reasonable quality Main Stand with a 1930's rickety seated stand next door up on that massive quarter terrace, and on the other side of the pitch was a town end style affair, with nothing behind the far goal. So much potential as a stadium, but unfortunately no parking and all that potential turned out to be for a retail park.
However, I still cant go to Dunelm Mill without picturing the huge terrace that could have been in what is now their car park, up against the London Road. We also had a sign on the main stand - "Our Aim the Football League" which, of course, came to pass, but tragically not at that stadium! Good job we didn't put the same sign up at JWW! Imagine the ridicule this season!
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Post by pedant on Mar 18, 2019 15:31:04 GMT
The Athletic Ground That was a venue for the All England tennis championship before it moved to Wimbledon Who actually remembers the old Athletic Ground? I remember an "official" figure of 10,000 fans squeezed into it for the 1978 for the FA Cup replay against Charlton who were then riding high in the equivalent of the Championship, and we were in the Conference. The floodlights were on for so long - as people started arriving so early - that they failed due to overheating before the end of the game, which we eventually lost 1-2.
The London Road end could have been huge if the terracing had continued all the way round, not just an odd "Slice" in the corner, and it had a reasonable quality Main Stand with a 1930's rickety seated stand next door up on that massive quarter terrace, and on the other side of the pitch was a town end style affair, with nothing behind the far goal. So much potential as a stadium, but unfortunately no parking and all that potential turned out to be for a retail park.
However, I still cant go to Dunelm Mill without picturing the huge terrace that could have been in what is now their car park, up against the London Road. We also had a sign on the main stand - "Our Aim the Football League" which, of course, came to pass, but tragically not at that stadium! Good job we didn't put the same sign up at JWW! Imagine the ridicule this season!
Funny, I remember 10,700. We can't both be correct but I'm not putting my money on either. |
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Post by stainese on Mar 18, 2019 15:56:27 GMT
I remember the Athletic Ground well It is easy to mock it as a Football league ground by modern standards but those who travelled away and witnessed some of the then 4th division grounds (League Two for younger readers) it was no worse then quite a few, and better then some Colchester springs to mind straight away with it's wooden terracing
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Post by headstone on Mar 18, 2019 15:56:43 GMT
I was there, but I don't remember 10,000 or 10,700 - in fact hasn't it been proved you can only remember a maximum of 150 people anyway, so there was no chance of remembering them all. So pedantically speaking, Pedant, I dispute that you remember 10,700.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 16:24:56 GMT
I think 10,700 was the official figure, although I seem to remember a strong rumour that quite a number got in without a ticket and got in for free, so the actual figure was probably much higher.
Many years later an old work colleague of mine, who was a Charlton supporter, said that all he could remember about the two matches was the bizarre Flannagan and Hales sending offs at the Valley, and standing in a lot of mud at London Road. Thinking about it he must have been standing at southern end of the ground
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Post by jdl on Mar 18, 2019 16:59:41 GMT
Many of us remember the old stadium. Personally, I was very fond of it, and it took me a long time to adjust to Dartford, and even longer to get over losing the old ground (nearly 25 years!). But looking back now, I'd much rather have JWW. The old ground was too far from the town centre, much too big for a small non-league side, and didn't really have any atmosphere with the average crowds.
The worst thing about it was that it was never designed for football (only as an additional use), so the running/dog track round the pitch meant you were too far from the action. The terracing at each end was good, but, again, too far from the pitch - and unroofed, so no acoustics at all (the bowling green end was also covered in dog shit!). For a typical league game, most of us stood in the Scotsman stand, which, before the 'hurricane' was a decent sized 'shed', and the granddads sat in the main stand (as per), with a few fans clustered up on the high terracing - 'critics corner'.
The restaurant was always a mystery to me - did anyone seriously come to see MUFC and have a meal at the same time? I suppose this was more for the dog racing, and, from the shed opposite, it was difficult to tell if anyone was actually behind the glass. Although the glass itself was the cause of much speculation every time a hoof ball headed in that direction. Rather disappointingly though, the windows survived even the loudest encounters with a football...
Another mystery was JT's claim that the AG was "not big enough" to be a FL ground. If anything, it was too big (from memory, it seemed twice the size of JWW). But he was right in a way, because it would have cost a fortune to turn it into a decent ground (with the stands/terracing close to the pitch), you would have effectively had to start from scratch and rebuild it. So maybe JT was right - it would have been cheaper to build a new ground (especially if you could have sold the old one for housing - imagine what that would fetch these days!).
One area where my memory is at odds with others, though, is the size of the crowds. It's commonly said that we regularly attracted average gates of over 1,000, but I remember most games being around the 3 or 400 mark, certainly no bigger than 600ish. Perhaps the sheer size of the place tricks my memory (even with large crowds, it always seemed empty), or maybe I've just got the Barry Fry season stuck in my head. We got good crowds towards the end, once promotion to the FL became a realistic possibility, but I'm pretty sure the gates were much lower in the early 80s.
One abiding memory of the old ground is the 'facilities'. The gents loo on the main stand side, for instance, was just a sort of shed with a trough round the inside wall - and no roof! (I never realised there was no roof until, having a pee one rainy day, I glanced up to see why the roof was leaking!) Mind you, that was still a vast improvement on the 'loo' on the other side of the ground - which was basically the rough ground behind the Scotsman!
RIP the old ground, I still miss it, despite everything (my youngest goes to Brunswick House, so I still 'see' it every day) - but I am so glad we've got the new one.
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Post by pedant on Mar 18, 2019 17:02:12 GMT
I was there, but I don't remember 10,000 or 10,700 - in fact hasn't it been proved you can only remember a maximum of 150 people anyway, so there was no chance of remembering them all. So pedantically speaking, Pedant, I dispute that you remember 10,700. Never (alright, rarely) one to duck a challenge ...
pedantically the 'remember' in the phrase "remember an "official" figure was 10,000" is remembering the official figure and not all of the crowd as individuals. So at no point did I claim to remember 10,700 people and thus you're disputing something that wasn't actually claimed / said. 
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Post by pedant on Mar 18, 2019 17:10:42 GMT
Many of us remember the old stadium. Personally, I was very fond of it, and it took me a long time to adjust to Dartford, and even longer to get over losing the old ground (nearly 25 years!). But looking back now, I'd much rather have JWW. The old ground was too far from the town centre, much too big for a small non-league side, and didn't really have any atmosphere with the average crowds. The worst thing about it was that it was never designed for football (only as an additional use), so the running/dog track round the pitch meant you were too far from the action. The terracing at each end was good, but, again, too far from the pitch - and unroofed, so no acoustics at all (the bowling green end was also covered in dog shit!). For a typical league game, most of us stood in the Scotsman stand, which, before the 'hurricane' was a decent sized 'shed', and the granddads sat in the main stand (as per), with a few fans clustered up on the high terracing - 'critics corner'. The restaurant was always a mystery to me - did anyone seriously come to see MUFC and have a meal at the same time? I suppose this was more for the dog racing, and, from the shed opposite, it was difficult to tell if anyone was actually behind the glass. Although the glass itself was the cause of much speculation every time a hoof ball headed in that direction. Rather disappointingly though, the windows survived even the loudest encounters with a football... Another mystery was JT's claim that the AG was "not big enough" to be a FL ground. If anything, it was too big (from memory, it seemed twice the size of JWW). But he was right in a way, because it would have cost a fortune to turn it into a decent ground (with the stands/terracing close to the pitch), you would have effectively had to start from scratch and rebuild it. So maybe JT was right - it would have been cheaper to build a new ground (especially if you could have sold the old one for housing - imagine what that would fetch these days!). One area where my memory is at odds with others, though, is the size of the crowds. It's commonly said that we regularly attracted average gates of over 1,000, but I remember most games being around the 3 or 400 mark, certainly no bigger than 600ish. Perhaps the sheer size of the place tricks my memory (even with large crowds, it always seemed empty), or maybe I've just got the Barry Fry season stuck in my head. We got good crowds towards the end, once promotion to the FL became a realistic possibility, but I'm pretty sure the gates were much lower in the early 80s. One abiding memory of the old ground is the 'facilities'. The gents loo on the main stand side, for instance, was just a sort of shed with a trough round the inside wall - and no roof! (I never realised there was no roof until, having a pee one rainy day, I glanced up to see why the roof was leaking!) Mind you, that was still a vast improvement on the 'loo' on the other side of the ground - which was basically the rough ground behind the Scotsman! RIP the old ground, I still miss it, despite everything (my youngest goes to Brunswick House, so I still 'see' it every day) - but I am so glad we've got the new one. Is that correct?
I always thought it was named the Athletic Ground from the days when the pitch/track was parallel to the London Road, into the land now behind the Mormon 'church'. When used as a greyhound track I recall the bends being described as "too tight" which would equally apply to any athletics track. The fact that I don't remember an athletics track being there doesn't mean there never was and the oval shape of the pitchside barrier, even before greyhound racing was introduced, would indicate that a track was there at some time.
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Post by pedant on Mar 18, 2019 17:22:33 GMT
Many of us remember the old stadium. Personally, I was very fond of it, and it took me a long time to adjust to Dartford, and even longer to get over losing the old ground (nearly 25 years!). But looking back now, I'd much rather have JWW. The old ground was too far from the town centre, much too big for a small non-league side, and didn't really have any atmosphere with the average crowds. The worst thing about it was that it was never designed for football (only as an additional use), so the running/dog track round the pitch meant you were too far from the action. The terracing at each end was good, but, again, too far from the pitch - and unroofed, so no acoustics at all (the bowling green end was also covered in dog shit!). For a typical league game, most of us stood in the Scotsman stand, which, before the 'hurricane' was a decent sized 'shed', and the granddads sat in the main stand (as per), with a few fans clustered up on the high terracing - 'critics corner'. The restaurant was always a mystery to me - did anyone seriously come to see MUFC and have a meal at the same time? I suppose this was more for the dog racing, and, from the shed opposite, it was difficult to tell if anyone was actually behind the glass. Although the glass itself was the cause of much speculation every time a hoof ball headed in that direction. Rather disappointingly though, the windows survived even the loudest encounters with a football... Another mystery was JT's claim that the AG was "not big enough" to be a FL ground. If anything, it was too big (from memory, it seemed twice the size of JWW). But he was right in a way, because it would have cost a fortune to turn it into a decent ground (with the stands/terracing close to the pitch), you would have effectively had to start from scratch and rebuild it. So maybe JT was right - it would have been cheaper to build a new ground (especially if you could have sold the old one for housing - imagine what that would fetch these days!). One area where my memory is at odds with others, though, is the size of the crowds. It's commonly said that we regularly attracted average gates of over 1,000, but I remember most games being around the 3 or 400 mark, certainly no bigger than 600ish. Perhaps the sheer size of the place tricks my memory (even with large crowds, it always seemed empty), or maybe I've just got the Barry Fry season stuck in my head. We got good crowds towards the end, once promotion to the FL became a realistic possibility, but I'm pretty sure the gates were much lower in the early 80s. One abiding memory of the old ground is the 'facilities'. The gents loo on the main stand side, for instance, was just a sort of shed with a trough round the inside wall - and no roof! (I never realised there was no roof until, having a pee one rainy day, I glanced up to see why the roof was leaking!) Mind you, that was still a vast improvement on the 'loo' on the other side of the ground - which was basically the rough ground behind the Scotsman! RIP the old ground, I still miss it, despite everything (my youngest goes to Brunswick House, so I still 'see' it every day) - but I am so glad we've got the new one. With apologies if this already well known but whilst being entertained by Solihull's demolition of the mighty Stones recently I was told that their ground used to be a golf driving range and that the stand at the end that's not got our "Chatham end" cast offs was originally the bays from which golfers used to whack their balls! |
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Post by Tony G on Mar 18, 2019 21:28:15 GMT
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Post by headstone on Mar 19, 2019 15:35:49 GMT
I was there, but I don't remember 10,000 or 10,700 - in fact hasn't it been proved you can only remember a maximum of 150 people anyway, so there was no chance of remembering them all. So pedantically speaking, Pedant, I dispute that you remember 10,700. Never (alright, rarely) one to duck a challenge ...
pedantically the 'remember' in the phrase "remember an "official" figure was 10,000" is remembering the official figure and not all of the crowd as individuals. So at no point did I claim to remember 10,700 people and thus you're disputing something that wasn't actually claimed / said.
Aha, the nws defence! To which there is never a comeback..... |
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Post by jdl on Mar 19, 2019 16:43:46 GMT
Never (alright, rarely) one to duck a challenge ...
pedantically the 'remember' in the phrase "remember an "official" figure was 10,000" is remembering the official figure and not all of the crowd as individuals. So at no point did I claim to remember 10,700 people and thus you're disputing something that wasn't actually claimed / said.
Aha, the nws defence! To which there is never a comeback..... Never? I'll take your nws and raise you a DaveU. |
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Post by pedant on Mar 19, 2019 17:41:30 GMT
Never (alright, rarely) one to duck a challenge ...
pedantically the 'remember' in the phrase "remember an "official" figure was 10,000" is remembering the official figure and not all of the crowd as individuals. So at no point did I claim to remember 10,700 people and thus you're disputing something that wasn't actually claimed / said.
Aha, the nws defence! To which there is never a comeback..... I'm deeply hurt. |
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