Today saw the final ever league game at Worcester City's iconic St George's Lane. The ground has been Worcester's home for the past 108 years but today saw it's last hurrah as it prepared to be bulldozed for housing, a fate that has befallen too many a classic ground.
I had previously visited here in 2005 for Worcester's live TV game with Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup, which they narrowly lost 1-0, and I just had to come back one more time.
Next season Worcester City will be exiled in Kidderminster as they attempt to try and build a ground back in the city. The chairman's programme notes were upbeat about survival eventually returning to Worcester, but some of the supporters in the ground were rather more sceptical.
There are plans in place to build a new ground on Nunnery Way, close to the M5 but, at this moment in time, those plans appear no further forward. The City Supporters Trust have therefore submitted their own plans to the council for a new ground next to a Leisure Centre in Perdiswell.
Whatever the outcome, for the time being it just hoped that the club can survive in exile at Aggborough. The club are hoping initiatives such as £100 season tickets will help them to do so.
Going back to today's programme, I must commend the club for for a superb 108 page issue. I'm not a Worcester fan but reading the tales from old players and life long fans about classic games at the ground, such as dumping Liverpool out of the FA Cup 2-1 in 1959, made an old cynic like me feel desperately sad. Most of the snippets of information in this blog come from the programme and I can certainly recommend it's purchase (click here).
I suppose the romantic in me would like to say the ground, which was packed to the rafters, went out with a bang as the homesters responded by beating the champions Chester, however it wasn't to be.
A George Horan header after just 8 minutes sealed the win for Chester, and in the process gave them a Conference North record 107 points. Worcester responded well and dominated possession, their cause helped by Chester's Matty McGinn recieving a straight red card just before half time, but they could not find a way past John Danby in the Chester goal. The closest they came to an equaliser was a shot from Ethan Moore which hit the post and then fell into the grateful arms of Danby.
Today though was all about bidding farewell to St George's Lane, sadly, in this modern age, we won't see the likes of it again. There was a Dylan Thomas poem quoted in the programme and I will end on those words "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
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| The final walk to the ground |
These famous gates will be held in storage by George Goode's son and
returned to the club when the new ground is built
A packed Brookside terrace
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| Blue skies over the Main Stand |
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| The emotion of the occasion proves too much for one supporter |
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