Thursday 28 February 2008

WAR(stones), What Are They Good For (well a 3-1 win actually!) - Wednesbury Town 1 Warstones Wanderers 3 - West Midlands League Division 1 - 23/02/08

There has been a club called Wednesbury Town FC since way back in the 1880's, I have no idea if the club I watched on Saturday have anything to do with the original club other than the name though. This Wednesbury Town don't even have their own ground and play their home games at Darlaston Town's Waverley Road.
Now, as we all know, lot's of non-league grounds have slopes, Tamworth has one, Yeovil have a rather famous one which gets mentioned whenever FA Cup Giantkilling is discussed, but the slope at Waverley Road beats them all. My pictures don't do it justice, it really is amazing. Wednesbury came out for the second half sporting climbing boots and crampons, no really!
As with a lot of West Midlands League grounds, Waverley Road could do with some loving care and attention, but there's no money and very few spectators. You can see that it would be capable of hosting higher division football but would struggle to pass a ground grading inspection for step five these days.


The entrance is between a couple of houses in a typical Black Country terraced street, somehow the rather nice blue painted wrought iron gates have survived being carted off by ne'er do wells! There is a largeish stand opposite the entrance with bench seats in it that's it for cover, further seating is provided for by a few benches outside the clubhouse which sits on top of the hill to the right. The bottom end is just broken fencing and weeds, my son did manage to find a nice new football in the undergrowth, if anyone knows who B.W.F.C. are, my son has your ball!
Decent pint of Banks's Mild in the clubhouse for just £1.95 and the cheese salad rolls were nice too.


I don't mind admitting that I have no idea who Warstones Wanderers are or where they came from or when they were formed! I have a feeling they are probably another fo these clubs which were either Sunday League or maybe Birmingham AFA and have decided to take the plunge into the pyramid. I do know that they are one of the few clubs in this division to issue a programme regularly so if you are a "paper-chaser" then they might be worth checking out. They have a website.
*EDIT* See, should have checked the website before, the history section tells me that they formed in 2001, started a Saturday team in the Wolverhampton and District Combination in 2005 and joined the WMRL the season after, it pays to do yer research!
The game itself wasn't up to much, Wednesbury took an early lead but were pegged back before half-time. Warstones then took advantage of the playing down the mountain and scored twice before I had even finished my half-time pint! I saw both goals through the clubhouse window though and the second one was a belter, volleyed into the top corner from the edge of the box.
I spent much of the second-half attempting to get updates from the Tamworth V Aldershot FA Trophy match (2-1 to Aldershot in the end, Wembley dreams dashed for another season!) but I don't think I missed a lot.



A quick mention for the Warstones number 10, he was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch, would have been worth the admission fee alone, had there been an admission fee that is!

Admission: Free

Programme: No

Attendance: 16 (Headcount and not including obvious club officials and anyone wandering in after more than 20 minutes, I have standards!)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's some slop there Derv!

Anonymous said...

Yeovil's slope disappeared in 1990 when they moved to their new (flat) ground.

The Wednesbury from the 1880s was Wednesbury Old Athletic.

Anonymous said...

Are we likely to see any more additions to this blog?

Stephen Lang said...

Hi Just started a groundhopping website would be great if You could link to it.
S.Lang

http://groundhopper2000.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

You are very sad

Dave Cooper said...

Cheers Baz, love you!