Tims 92

Grays Athletic

The Recreation Ground

Ground No. 212

Visited - Saturday 24th April 2010
Result - Grays Athletic 2-1 Forest Green Rovers
Competition - Blue Square Premier
Attendance - 940

When Jimmy Muir (played by Sean Bean) made his debut for Sheffield United in the film When Saturday Comes he completed the dream that every football fan spends most of their working hours thinking of, climbing from non-league obscurity to the top of the professional game and ensuing stardom. Common sense brings you back down to earth with the realisation that it doesn’t happen in real life, except perhaps at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The story of Steve Bull, a hod-carrier playing for Tipton Town who went on to save Wolves and play for England at the 1990 World Cup is legendary, and perhaps even the inspiration for the Sean Bean film, that was then though, a time when the game was simpler and the reaches of the top clubs wasn’t as quite all empowering, but in the case of Michael Kightly, it’s proof that it can still happen.

Released by Spurs as a youngster and Southend later on, the Essex lad looked resigned to a future of normal mundane work ahead of him, with only part-time football to take his mind off it, playing for his hometown club Basildon United and later Farnborough Town on loan. A move to Grays Athletic in 2005 though turned out to be the start of something big. He was part of the FA Trophy winning team that also finished third in the Conference in 2006, and a blistering start to the following season saw him given an opportunity of league football once more, this time at Molineux after been spotted by the Wolves scouts. Starting out at one of his old grounds, Roots Hall, in a 1-0 win over Southend he scored in his second match and went on to finish a close runner-up as player of the season. Two years later and the dream was complete when he took to the field as a substitute to make his Premier League debut in the 2-1 win over Fulham, completing his rise from the Conference to the top, with England U21 appearances in between. Who says dreams don’t come true! There was a point when it nearly didn’t happen though. Coming initially on loan the permanent deal could have been scuppered after Manchester United came in offering more money during the transfer window, but Grays chairman Mick Woodward stuck to his word and honoured the agreed £20,000 deal for the winger, a move that won him a lot of respect at this end, even if he could quite easily have bought more money into his own club.

Perhaps he would have been better advised to, because whilst Michael Kightly was off sunning it in the top flight, Grays were in the midst of a crisis. Kightly’s former manager, Mark Stimson, had left for Stevenage, winning the FA Trophy with them before moving on to Gillingham, whilst Mick Woodward had stepped down as Chairman as the relationship with fans started to sour. The club had had a terrible season, amassing a mere 23 points, with relegation having been confirmed at the start of April, and if that was bad, then off the pitch it was catastrophic with the club having been kicked out of their ground by the owners, following a failure to agree lease terms.

The Recreation Ground’s future had been in question for a while with extending the already limited capacity impossible due to the close proximity of housing on all four sides, but the announcement that the game against Forest Green Rovers would be the last one was only made a week beforehand, leaving with me the quandary of deciding whether to skip Wolves’ fixture with Blackburn to visit it. I don’t like missing home games, but I like missing out on a ground even less, so season ticket passed off to my Dad then it was a hastily arranged trip to Essex on the cards instead.

As you might expect, the Recreation Ground has a story not dissimilar to the many grounds up and down the country that share the same name. Traditionally, Grays was a brick making town, and the mines and quarries had left huge depressions in the ground all around the area, which come the middle of the nineteenth century were left largely redundant. It was the Victorian’s philanthropist desire for improving their workers living conditions that led in 1890 to one of these former quarries to the east of the town centre being turned into grounds for ‘the general populations health and well being’, with football, cricket, cycling and greyhound racing catered for on the newly created space. Unfortunately, the expanding population and lack of use had seen much of the ground subsequently developed with streets of housing, but in 1906, a Mr E. T. Smallcombe set about saving part of the area, by laying the foundations for what would become the home of Grays Athletic for the next 104 years. It’s a shame that he hadn’t sectioned off more of the site to build on, but the grounds downfall had started in 1980 when the old Main Stand, a fairly large structure (seen here) had burned down, which resulted in the sale of the site one year later, and flats being built along one side.

With the club rising up the leagues, the ground had undergone a transformation during 2004-05 with all four sides redeveloped, and that was how I found it when I came to visit for the final game.

Setting off a little later than I’d planned, the journey down to Essex went fairly well, in and out of London with no problems to report, arriving into Grays at 1:30pm. The town itself is fairly small, but the town centre busy all the same, and after a quick walk through I easily found the ground.

There really is little to see from the outside, the away turnstiles being at the bottom of a small road with a small car park outside, whilst the home turnstiles are at the opposite end, where the ticket office is the most prominent feature standing on Bridge Road, which the ground is also occasionally referred to as. After buying a ticket, then you come in on the near side, which is towered over by the flats above it. The dressing rooms are actually built into the ground level of the building, leaving them looking quite unusual for this level of football where you’re more used to seeing the players emerge from underneath a stand. Cover on this side is split to either side of this, with a terrace running half the length of the pitch on one side up towards the away end, yet actually cordoned off during the game due to access issues, whilst the near part is split into two smaller areas, a terrace at the end, and the directors stand in the middle, with the main exit to street level in between. The Ball Court End used to be dominated by the clubhouse and indoor Astroturf pitches behind it, but these are almost hidden now by a decent sized, open terrace that has been built in front. The Main Stand sits along the West side, running the full length of the pitch and providing the only seating to fans (interestingly, the old directors box sits redundant in the middle with the newer one opposite), whilst the far end is hard standing to one side of the goal, and the tallest terrace at the ground shoved towards the one side, sectioned off for away fans. Helping add a bit of character, the risers of the terracing, along with all the other surfaces in the ground have all been painted blue. Having had a look around, and found the club shop, then I went inside the clubhouse to have a pint and watch the Man Utd-Spurs game (the clubhouse was once one of the few in the country to be included in the Good Beer Guide), before it was time to get the final game underway.

Whilst Grays had nothing but pride to play for, Forest Green came into the match on the final day of a relegation battle that saw four teams trying to avoid one spot. They were in a good position, in 19th on 45 points, level with Histon who were two goals better off. All they needed was a draw to stop Eastbourne Borough (43 points, worse goal difference) or Gateshead (42 points) from catching them, and with the other three having more difficult games (Histon vs Barrow, Gateshead vs Wimbledon, Eastbourne vs Oxford) then they looked the least likely to go down, and perhaps that was on their mind when the game got underway, because if you didn’t know, then you wouldn’t have had any idea they were in trouble.

I don’t like being critical just for the sake of it, but it would be lying to say that it wasn’t the worst quality game I’d seen all season (and that’s including matches I’ve seen at Step 6/7 level). The first half in particular was dire end of season stuff, the closest either side coming to goal was just before half-time when Grays winger Duran Reynolds hit the bar from near the touchline. It might have been more spectacular if it wasn’t blatantly a misplaced cross into the box!

The second half started a bit brighter, and the visitors had obviously had a rollicking at half time with Gateshead and Histon both winning their games. They seemed as up for it as you would have expected them to be at the start, and forced a number of corners to worry the home defence. In the 66th minute they found the goal they had been threatening, courtesy of the spot and one of the clearest penalties you’ll ever see. Reece Styche had played a one-two before running into the box and being unceremoniously shoved to the floor by Harlee Dean. No complaints from the home side, and David Brown confidently slotted home the penalty. It should have been 2-0 minutes later when Jonathan Smith found himself in the box with only the keeper to beat, waiting for the ball to bounce favourably, before blasting over from about 6 yards out. The groans from the away fans behind the goal and howls of laughter in the home ends said it all, but still the visitors were looking the brighter as they looked assured of retaining their Blue Square Premier status, until in the 75th minute the hosts drew level. Grays had been building up some good pressure down the left hand side, which saw the Forest Green defence stretched when the ball was played inside and back across the edge of the box to 16 year old Alex Osborn who slammed it home with no mistake. If that should have been a wake-up call to the visitors, then it wasn’t. They seemed content to hold on for the point, and were made to pay for their lack of ambition just four minutes from the end when the home side, who had been getting more into it after their goal, took the lead for the first time. Again, the ball came in from the left hand side, this time to Alsseny Cissoko, who looped a header back over the defence and into the net to make it 2-1. So, four minutes to go, Gateshead were still beating Wimbledon, Histon had gone behind at home to Barrow, but were still ahead of Rovers on goal difference, but crucially, just two minutes before the goal here, Eastbourne had taken the lead at home to Oxford. It was brown pants time for the away fans, and they needed a goal to relegate Histon. It wasn’t coming, in fact to overtake them they ended up needing two after Histon equalised late into stoppage time in their game, and whilst a point would still have been enough to send Gateshead down, the team couldn’t produce a chance, Grays determined to hold on for their first home win since January to round off a 104 year history on a happy(ish) note. Even four minutes of injury time wasn’t enough, and come the end it remained 2-1 to the home side which saw Rovers sunk by results elsewhere.

With the final whistle gone, then the almost predictable pitch invasion started, albeit a ‘pitch amble’ would probably more describe it, from the crowd who didn’t seem to acknowledge the significance of the occasion quite as much as I’d expected (or had seen elsewhere on final games I’ve been to). Even if it was three times more than the previous game versus Wrexham, the attendance you might have hoped would have been a bit more than 940 (swelled by a decent away following), and after wandering around taking in the atmosphere then except for one bloke crying in the Main Stand, you’d have been excused for thinking it was just a normal end-of-season match. Still, perhaps looking ahead towards the future isn’t the worst thing in the world, and chants of “Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be, will be, we’re going to Tilbury” raised a smile.

After leaving, then I made my way home, slightly annoyed to hear of missing the pitch invasion at Molineux after Wolves all but secured safety, but still glad to have taken the opportunity to visit the ground at least once.

‘The Rec’ might not have been the most developed ground, or had anything memorable that you could quite put your finger on (i.e. an ornate gable, unusual floodlights, big stand, etc), but it did have a nice cosy feel to it, that certainly on a warm early summers day made it a good place to visit. Whatever happens in the future, then for a club that came across as generally quite friendly and whom most Wolves fans still have a huge amount of respect for after their dealing in the Michael Kightly transfer, then you wish them all the best for the future and hope that they can find a new ground back in their home town without having to spend too much time on the road.