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Wednesday 8th October 2008 ko 19.45

Midland Combination Premier Division

MEIR K.A. 4 (Baker 7 Mizkeil 15 Barrass 18 Coulston 66)

BROCTON 3 (Wylde 24 McLeod 37 McMahon 76)

Att 95 at Kings Park, Meir Heath

Entry £5

Programme £1

Memories are strange things- the two details I remember most about visiting Kings Park was that the Sat Nav failed completely just after collecting GroundhopUK’s Chris Berezai at Castle Donington, and the cover behind the goal at the ground once saw service at Alton Towers- it sheltered the platform at the miniature railway! Other than that I wonder how on earth we got there, this was before the days of reliable mobile data and maps, and yet somehow we made kickoff- maybe groundhopper sixth sense does exist.

Meir Heath sits on top of a hill just to the south of Stoke-on-Trent, but quite honestly you wouldn’t know you were in close proximity to Britain’s only polycentric city. That said, I do wonder what I did notice, I was just aiming to anything that looked like a functioning set of floodlights!

The club was founded as Kings Arms out of the pub in the Meir District of Stoke in 1972. They played in the North Staffs & District Sunday League, but switched to Saturday football in 1976. That necessitated a change of name- due to FA regulations so the KA suffix was a nod back to their former existence. The club moved to Kings Park in 1978, buying the ground in 1993 from brewers Mitchells & Butlers. The improvements they made were impressive, floodlights were erected in 1996, and who couldn’t love that railway stand?

The club stepped up from the Staffs County Senior League in 1992 to the Step 6 Midland Combination’s Premier Division and we caught them during their stint there. I remember them being a friendly bunch and the ground was clearly being developed with further promotions in mind. So it was with both surprise and sadness that the club folded abruptly in 2010 for reasons unknown.

The Meir KA name was revived by Sea Lion FC who used Kings Park for Sunday League football but they withdrew from the Potteries & District Sunday League in August 2020. I’m told that Meir KA does still exist at youth level but information seems very scant. Kings Park was taken on by Stone Dominoes for use by their youth sides, although I note that their adult team failed to start the currently suspended Staffordshire County Senior League season. 

I’d like to think that King’s Park will continue to be used when the pandemic is over, it’s too good a ground to lay fallow. I’d hope that an adult side will look at the place and think “We could progress from the Staffs County League here.” Who knows which train will stop at the platform behind the goal?