Cash Cowes

Cowes Sports 0 v AFC Newbury 2, Sydenham's Wessex League, Division 1. 

By 2004, I'd given up watching Reading, and was instead watching non-league.  I'd picked a few local teams, and was watching their away games to clear the various leagues.  For the Wessex league, I was watching AFC Newbury, which was strange decision as my Dad watched rivals Thatcham.  Anyway, this was a ferry trip across to the Isle of Wight. 

Cowes were formed in 1881.  At the turn of the last century, they were quite a force in football in the south, winning the double in the inaugural season of the Hampshire League.  This saw promotion to the Southern League, where they were runners up to a certain Thames Ironwork, who were West Ham, before they started concentrating on scamming local authorities and kicking the shit out of each other.  They were promoted to the first division, joining contemporaries Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall, Bristol City and Swindon.  Cowes soon returned to the Hampshire league, winning it on six occasions, until they were promoted to the Wessex League in the early nineties.  By then, they had merged with Wight Sports, adopting their suffix.  They had remained in the top league ever since, though without really troubling either end of the table.

AFC Newbury were formed in 1996 to replace the long standing Newbury Town, who had gone bust after been taken over by an oil Barron and taking half of Readings first team squad to the Isthmian second division.  The new club was basically a renamed Ecchinswell, a village just south of Newbury, who had a rising team in the Hampshire league, but couldn't gain access to the Wessex league as the ground was just a field.   They therefore took over the Farraday Road home of Newbury Town and combined with a couple of boys clubs to form a very strong youth set up.  With financial backing from major local company Vodafone, they assembled a very strong team, basically from the previously dominant Andover Town, recruited Guy Whittingham as manager, and rose up to challenge at the top of the Wessex League.  A third place position the previous season wasn't good enough for their application to the Southern League to be accepted, but they went into this game in second place, behind a dominant Winchester City.

Cowes originally played at Brooklyn Park, adjacent to the river Medina.  They were early victims of property developers, it being sold for housing in 1912. They moved to the then out of town Testwood Park, purchasing the ground during WW2.  This has been a shrewd investment, as they have been able to sell off various parts for development, the ground now being encased in housing.

The main stand dates from the purchase of the ground in 1946.  Local folklore states that it was built in 24 hours.  I could believe that about Crockenhill, but this looks more substantial

Alongside the stand was the newly built changing room and clubhouse block.

On the other side, was a raised area that looked suspiciously a stand that hadn't been built in a day.

The opposite touchline used to have a basic cover, but it seems to have disappeared since my first visit in Hampshire league days.  Newbury used to play in green, but the Vodafone sponsorship saw them get the then fellow sponsees Man Utd template kit, with a Newbury badge.

At the entrance touchline, signs of the training area sold off during various financial crisis.

At the opposite end, once fine views down to the Needles have been shrouded by a housing estate.

I have no idea why I included a broken skateboard deck in this shot.

Slightly more artistic.  Or as artistic as a photo can be that silhouettes a bank clerk getting his weekly 90 minutes of semi-authority. 

Newbury took the midway through the first half, mainly because I informed an unsighted Anthony Alayne that Dave Asker was unmarked in the centre.  I claimed the assist, purely to spite the fantasy football weirdos.

They then doubled the lead in the second, past the first recorded example I have of a @keepers_towel.  A very ornate one it is too.

2016 Postscript

Cowes Sports carried on in the top division of the Wessex.  However, in 2010 they finished rock bottom, and were relegated to division 1.  They stayed there for five seasons, before a second place finish saw them return to the top last season.  An additional cover has been erected on the foundations adjacent to the main stand.

The season was the high point of AFC Newbury's short existence. In the FA cup, they progressed to the fourth qualifying round after beating Local Conference South side Basingstoke Town, four divisions ahead of Newbury, 4-2 at the Camrose, after being 2-0 down at half time.  They got to the quarter final of the Vase, losing at Beddlington Terriers, a game I watched adjacent to Steve Harmisson, who proved to be one of the dullest people in existence.  However, approaching the end of the season, wages started being paid late, and various stories of financial woe emerged, the team dropping to sixth place.  This carried on to the following season, which Newbury struggled through, but at the end of it lost the Vodafone backing and were kicked out of the council owned ground. They lasted a couple of games into the new season, playing at a local school, but called it a day in September 2006.  A local pub team, Old London Apprentice, took over the lease of Farraday Road.  They changed to become Newbury FC and gained promotion through the Reading Senior League, to the Hellenic.  However, the councils desire to build either a bypass or industrial units on the ground, means they won't give the club a lease longer than a year, so they have now had to drop down to the Thames Valley League.