Reader’s letter: Futureproof Newark’s youth football
In a July 1993 Newark Advertiser article John Crampton, the president of Nottinghamshire Football Association and Senior Trustee of the Newark Youth League, said: “I would like to see this as a football stadium for the community”.
He was speaking of the seven acres of land that sits behind Newark Cricket Club on Kelham Road, on which plans were in place for a pavilion, spectator facilities, two full-size pitches, one a floodlit all weather surface,where football, hockey and tennis might have been played.
If built, this would not, however, have been the first stadium in the town.
At the Kelham Road Cricket Ground in October 1884 Newark competed in the English Challenge Cup (now known as the FA Cup). They gave ladies free entry; gents were charged at 3d and for the enclosure 6d (2.5p today). Whilst there was spectator segregation, it was not a stadium we would recognise today.
In the early 1900s William Tidd Pratt saw the need to provide green space set aside for football and other sports for the children of the town.
He rented land from the Duke of Newcastle and over the years built a wooden stadium, later to be known as, The Stadium Elm Avenue.
A few years later, just 100 metres away, the main employer of the town, Ransome and Marles, built their own stadium, with a wooden stand and behind the goals concrete stepped terracing.
After time playing next to the cricket ground, the town football club acquired land just off Muskham Road, close to the Castle Station, and built a stadium with a turnstile.
Newark has always been a footballing town, since the club’s formation in 1868, as one of the first in the country.
Today, Newark Town is an excellent example of community participation. It has approximately 500 young-sters’ boys and girls playing in all age groups, from under sixes to under 18s.
They have a ladies’ and a men’s Saturday team, and two Sunday teams, and a walking football side principally for those a bit older.
With all this participation there are around 120 volunteers who regularly give up their time for free to ensure the club can function.
The plans highlighted in the Advertiser’s 1993 article for a stadium, and football pitches, on land exchanged by the district council during compulsory purchase of the former Newark Town and Youth League Ground, proved to be unusable as they regularly flood.
In recent years there has been a large population growth and, as an unfortunate consequence, the loss of playing fields to housing, includ-ing The Stadium on Elm Avenue and the Flowserve Ground in Balderton.
If consideration is to be given to the building of a stadium, then it is important there is also provided additionalfootball pitches, perhaps, similar to the plans laid out by that Advertiser article, as plans for a stadium only, would provide for limited use, i.e. one game played at one time, where several pitches would allow for greater participation, better meeting the growing demands for football locally.
Any stadium build must consider the growing demands for space needed to play youth football, for both boys and for girls, thus future proofing Newark football.
As John Crampton said in 1993, others will agree: “I would like to see this as a football stadium for the community”. — FRANCIS TOWNDROW, Newark.
