Saturday 2nd August 2025 ko 15:00

Midland League Division Two

CADBURY ATHLETIC 2 (Malley 55p Mudie 66)

BOLDMERE SPORTS & SOCIAL FALCONS 2 (Wilson 8 Maddocks 75og)

Att 260 at Birmingham Moseley RUFC

Free Entry

Programme £2

It doesn’t take too much empathy to understand Cadbury Athletic’s problem. Their home is the utterly sublime Cadbury Recreation Ground in Bournville, a ground that every self-respecting football ground enthusiast ought to visit, but one they’ll never be able to improve so they could play Pyramid Football there. So every time they’ve been able to progress they’re had to groundshare.

This season it’s happened again, but with a couple of twists. The first is that the club are deliberating scheduling youth team games back at Bournville on the mornings of home 1st XI games so fans can see games at both venues.

The second is that they’ve moved to Birmingham Moseley Rugby Club’s Sporting Village home. That did raise an eyebrow, albeit one very much with my Oxford United hat on. I should explain; back in 2000 then Oxford owner Firoz Kassam was in the process of moving the club from the Manor Ground to the brand new Kassam Stadium. He soon realised that he’d make more money from his 3-sided stadium if two teams played there so tried to buy Moseley RUFC with the idea of moving them to Oxford and rebranding them.

Oxford United fans hated the idea- we all remember the Wimbledon/Milton Keynes debacle, and Moseley and their fans fought the idea tooth and nail- their whole identity and sense of place was on the line. The proposal was eventually defeated, with Kassam eventually getting London Welsh to move to Oxford from 2012 to 2015. That move, by the way ended up with Welsh bankrupt and back at Old Deer Park.

But the fight, and professionalism had all but killed Moseley. They’d been forced to leave their spiritual home The Reddings, but once they’d secured a lease at Billesley Common they could grow the club once again. And what you see now is mighty impressive, albeit with the caveat that hard standing around the pitch will be laid to keep the football ground-graders happy. It is a remarkable bit of cooperation; football and rugby aren’t always easy bedfellows, and after Firoz Kassam’s antics Moseley could be forgiven for wanting to swerve any kind of football forever!

Cadbury’s first game at Moseley was at the end of the grand opening of a suite of “Paddel” courts behind one goal, and what appeared to be an open day. I certainly don’t expect the wide range of food on sale here to be available for every Cadbury home game! But my belly not withstanding, the stadium is a mighty fine place to watch a game, and we got an entertaining draw too.

In fact my only question going forward is this. Can Moseley be made to feel like home for Cadbury Athletic when Bournville is such an icon? Some things are beyond mere ground gradings. We’ll see.