A brief history of Phoenix Sports Club

I have been asked to do a repeat of the Club's history as many of our members are new and have not had the opportunity to learn anything about our beginnings.

I started the Club in 1935, solely as a soccer club and it was the combination of two clubs St. John's Welling and Lakeside.

Having started St. John's we met in the Church Hall near Danson Park but decided to leave when the vicar wanted all of our funds to go to the church, so we became Lakeside and met in a room at the Nag's Head Welling, at least I did whilst most of the other members were downstairs.

This did not suit me and I decided to move again this time to my parents school. Hope Lodge and most of the players came with me. Hope lodge was opposite the gate of Danson Park where the Sports Centre now is. The school received on the the Nazi bombs, luckily after we had moved the school to Brampton Road, it is still there and called Brampton Nursery. All the houses where the Sports Centre now is were destroyed by a land mine.

Now renamed Phoenix, from the ashes of the two other clubs we met in the stables on the side of the house and many an evening we spent playing solo round a very smoky coke stove.

We enlarged the club to Cricket & Table Tennis and if you think the old pavilion is cold you should have played table tennis at Brampton with the wind howling under the stable doors.

The soccer teams played in Danson Park in the polo field which is now the Bexley Grammar School and, yes Polo was played there on Sundays. Cricket was also in Danson in front of the mansion.

You cricketers may grumble about your wickets but, those we used in Danson were cut and rolled on Friday were on a slope and you had to be very quick with either bat or body to dispatch or miss injury. I scored my highest score in Danson 71 Not out.

The war came but we carried on whilst our members dwindled finally I was called up and we decided to continue the club by letters and were we spread out I was in South Africa others were in Canada, Middle East and Far East. Eventually it was over and five of us go together and decided to restart with two teams. We did this again in the Sidcup league still playing in Danson until we were given a better ground in Woolwich road Bexleyheath until it was turned into gardens. We moved to Oakfield Park Dartford and joined the Kent Amateur League and also the Dartford League.

We were now in an old air raid shelter alongside the railway station in Welling and it was there that we decided to put away 10% of all our income in the hope that we would eventually be able to get a ground of our own. We had by this time a great following and had many outings by charabancs (now coaches) to play teams in the coast and also the the Isle Of Wight on tour. Hikes and many social evenings and our funds grew so that when the then Crayford Council put an advert in the local paper that they have a piece of ground available for any club that came up with a viable plan would they come to a meeting at the Town Hall. We went knowing that we had about £50.00 in our savings account and with not very much hope.

At the meeting we were all told to go away and lay out our plans which the council would look at and decide which club would have the hard task to develop the ground.

After hard discussion we sent in our ideas and were delighted to be called for further talks with the council, apparently they were impressed with our plans and offered us the site.

So we started and what a problem very little money and the site a mess. The ground was covered with yard high weeds, the shed at the bottom was the Wardens building during the war. however we the workers (most of the members) started to clear the ground whilst Doug Cracknell (still member) dealt with the letters, he is a barrister, and, by the time he had finished had a pile of letters and documents three inches high. Letters to various bodies asking for help financially and many other documents. We arranged a long lease at a peppercorn rent which included outfield mowing.

The cricket pitch was laid and the Old Pavilion was started with various loans and donations. Meanwhile the bottom building was fitted with butane heating and lights.

Up where the car park is now was a shed where we hoped to use for our few possessions unfortunately on Guy Fawkes' night some youngsters set it alight, but we got a very useful £700 from Crayford Council for it's insurance. Along the road side was a wooden fence, I say was, as whilst we were trying to hurry the clearing of the weeds which were lovely and dry by fire it got our-of-hand and we had a very large bonfire which cleared a large area of the ground and also the wooden fence.

Eventually all was ready except for the stones and the members spent hour after hour night after night filling buckets and taking them off the pitches. The old Pavilion was now built and play was started on our own pitch, still stones were being removed.

The car park was not as it is now. One of our members worked for the road repair firm and, when a surface was to be removed he arranged for it to be sent to the ground instead of to the tip, thus we have a solid car park.

We found that the soccer surface was not sound and needed extra soil, this was supplied free from the sewage farm at Abbey Wood and, the following year we had a beautiful crop of tomato plants.

Whilst we had the pavilion we decided that it was not ideal for everything and decided to build again. This time I with Peter Hillman persuaded the Government to let us buy a prefab house which they were demolishing in Martens Avenue. We got this for £43.00 and a fire extinguisher. Next we had to pull it down and transport it to the ground, this was mostly done in my estate car. Peter Shipton whilst removing the roof was nearly killed when it fell.

The rebuilding took sometime as we still had little money. However with the very great help of Peter Hillman's brother who was in charge of the building of factories and consequently was responsible for the disposal of the left over materials we were able to get most of what we needed for the rebuilding.

Later an extension was erected mostly by the soccer section and we are now working on a plan to extend even further.

Your thanks must go to the past and present members who give so much of their valuable time on your behalf often without much thanks.

The Cricket section have brought the square up to a very high standard mainly due to Messrs. Lester-Smith and Richard Cornell and this section will be responsible for the area between the soccer pitch centre and the square on both sides after soccer finishes.