Wednesday 16th October 2024 ko 19:45

Wiltshire League Premier Division

FARINGDON TOWN 0

SHRIVENHAM FC 1 (J Hirst 15)

Harrison sent off 90+1 (serious foul play)

Att c250

Free Entry

Programme by donation to the Jack Badger fundraiser

Football does ebb and flow in all its guises, and perhaps more than most in Faringdon’s corner of West Oxfordshire. Some may know the club as the hosts of the annual Faringdon Memorial Thursday Cup others may remember their hosting of a game on the 2012 North Berkshire Groundhop. I certainly got to know the club well in the preamble to that event! Hop or no hop though, I was always going to be at Faringdon’s first game under lights.

An abiding memory of that hop was that of the 4 grounds we featured that day Faringdon were by far the biggest club, and one best equipped to progress but for one massive issue, their lack of floodlights. The problem was and is that Tucker Park is a public park surrounded by houses, in a well-to-do area. I couldn’t see how they’d ever progress here, and so to see them firstly get the pitch railed off then get floodlights here is a remarkable achievement.

There is some context to all of this though and it all starts with the sadly defunct club that opened that 2012 hop, namely Coleshill United. There we parked our cars in Oxfordshire, walked over the bridge to watch a game in Wiltshire, and all in the North Berkshire League. The slightly schizophrenic nature of the counties is down to 1974 boundary changes- the area was in Berkshire but is now in Oxfordshire, but extremely close to Wiltshire.

So if you are Faringdon Town, an ambitious club, the fact that the North Berkshire League fell out of the footballing pyramid was a push to the club leaving for firstly the Hellenic League Division Two and when that failed to get Step 7 status, to the Wiltshire League. Yes, in theory the club could have entered the Oxfordshire Senior League too, but the geography of the Wiltshire is more logical!

But while the transformation of Tucker Park is amazing please don’t see elevation to Step 6 as inevitable. For one thing, while it would be fairly straightforward to drop in a suitable seated stand in front of the clubhouse, there is no hard standing and you’d have to find a sympathetic ground grader to agree that a public park is fully enclosed. That is assuming Faringdon Town’s plan is Step 6, the aim here seems to have been to create a community asset, which they have in spades.

There is a cautionary tale too, in the guise of near neighbours Shrivenham, themselves too having a background in the North Berkshire League. You may recall the hop game behind the security check at the Defence Academy, Watchfield in 2014. The reason the idea ever took root, was that Shrivenham A used to use the ground before folding in 2012, so I knew the North Berks would be happy us to use the ground as a one-off. Sadly the stresses and strains of Hellenic League football proved to be too much for the first XI, they resigned in 2023. Like Faringdon there was no temptation for them to return to the North Berks, that failure to retain Step 7 status hurting the league once again.

But in uncertain times, perhaps to look too far into the future is pointless. The point on this wet evening was to celebrate and congratulate Faringdon Town, and yes I was impressed they got a a bigger attendance than that hop game! In fact I do wonder how many would have come along if it hadn’t been raining?

The records will show that Shrivenham won, they were that little more experienced and savvy, but the result was secondary to the occasion on this happy evening.