Bidefords Ground

[Dave]

Bidefords Ground

Original Post made on Feb 9th 2010

I had not planned to do a grounds review of Bideford AFC ground today; if I had I would have taken my camera with me. I more than often leave Bideford over the old bridge to get to Barnstaple, but for some reason found myself driving along the embankment that would lead me to the new bridge instead and on route you go past Bideford’ AFC football ground. I stopped outside the ground just to pour myself a cup of coffee from my flask and decided on the spur of the moment to go and have a look around.

I made a post a while back about the real fear that Bideford will be chucked out of their ground and so I took some pictures on my camera phone just in case I don’t get the chance to do a decent shoot before there is a new B&Q on the site, not the best quality but if I’ll try and remember to do a proper shoot later in the year.

The gate is always open during the day as the club have to allow public access to the area and it gets locked in the evening but that I was to learn while in there does not stop the local vandals from getting in at night and wrecking the ground and ripping out the few seats that are the two stands.

I had walked three quarters around the ground and became aware someone was walking behind me and as I stopped to take another picture a man very politely asked me I minded him asking who I was. It turned out he thought I might have been from the council and as you might expect that might have made less welcome than I was, in fact my welcome now extends to me popping in at anytime during the day for a cup of tea and a further chat with the man.

I have forgotten his name already but he is on the committee of the club and he and his brother also run the burger van in the ground. He is getting on a bit but it was clear talking too him he has loved the football club all his life and I just got the feeling that Bideford Town was a real proper football club, the way it was always meant to be, that is before money became more important than the football.

In the twenty minutes I spent talking with him I was to learn a lot more about the situation the club finds itself in and I do fear it may well be the case its when and not if the council gets its way and gives the go ahead for a large DIY store to be build on the ground.

The club were offered some land at Appledore but it’s too far away and if they were to move there they might as well remain the club and then the council decided to offer the club the old cattle market site. This is on the embankment and on a major flood plain and the site has just been declared unsuitable to be used for housing.

The current ground is on land as is Plainmoor that was given to the council for recreational use only for the people of the town, only In Bideford’s case it seems the council has mysteriously lost the paper work and there is no proof that is the case It’s the one thing that the club hopes could prevent a DIY superstore being built on the site, but how do they prove anything without the paperwork.

When I read up the story when I did my last post on this ground, tennis courts were mentioned as forming a part of the site and I had to ask this man just where they were. He pointed to a piece of land behind the goal nearest the gate and I could see the remains of the two concrete courts that are now just mostly covered in weeds.


The club had plans to turn that area into an all weather training pitch and the FA were happy to fund it all but only if the club owned the ground, they do own a very nice purpose built club house, but the council has already stated just how much they will pay the club for it and as you might expect its not what the club value it at.

Any love between the club and its main sponsor seems to have been lost and it’s understandable when you know some of the facts. Just across the road from the ground is a Morrisons Supermarket and when Asda came to town they were looking to sponsor the football club. Asda is someway out of the town and near the Atlantic Shopping Village.

Not because they had any interest in the club but only to out do Asda, Morrisons jumped in and offered a deal that would give the club £12.000 over three years and that is just about to end. The club can’t even get any discount on anything they buy from the store and even have to pay full price for the buns used in the burger bar.

Morrisons it seems supports the club being moved and why wouldn’t they, far better to have a large DIY store opposite that will increase the people at that end of the town than a football ground, it would give that store far more trade than it has now.

There once was a time when the ground was full of advertising boards, now it does not have that many and over half that are still up have not been paid for this year for them, I was assured the Morrison one was coming down as soon as the sponsorship ended. The council who always helped the club out but now is doing nothing to help, they have even stopped supplying the fertiliser to use on the pitch.

The pitch did not look to bad but there was a time I was told when it was so well cared for you could have played bowls on it, but this is a small town club now doing all it can to keep its head above water.

So what’s the future? Well it needs the people of the town to get behind the club and fight for it, but I would expect there may well be more towns people who would want to have a DIY superstore in their town and I expect as it happens here in Torbay and most other places, the council will get its way and the club will be forced to leave the ground that has always been its home.


I'll use these pictures for now but hope to get some better ones when I have some time to go and shoot them again with my proper camera.