20. St George's Lane, Evesham United (Worcester City)

Evesham United 0-1 Swindon Supermarine
Southern League Premier Division
13.11.10

Ground: St. George's Lane (Worcester City FC)
Admission: Adult: £11 Children: £3 (£1 stand transfer at Worcester home games)
Programme: £1.50 (includes team sheet)
Attendance: 94
Capacity: 4,000
Seated: Approx.: 1,000
Covered: 1,300
Town: Worcester, Worcestershire
Club shop: yes (Worcester have their own while Evesham set their own up in the clubhouse)
Floodlights: yes
Step: 7

Worcester is a city in Worcestershire. It is 30 miles south west of Birmingham and 29 miles north of Gloucester. The River Severn runs through the city and is overlooked by the 12th century Worcester cathedral. This site held the last battle of the Civil war. Worcester is the home of composer Sir Edward Elgar and Worcestershire sauce. The cathedral is 927 years old with its crypts thought to be even older. The Chapter house is the only circular one in the country. The cathedral is the burial place of King John.
Worcester is a town with a big sporting community. The town is home to Worcester City FC, Worcester Warriors RFC and Worcestershire CCC. Worcester can be accessed from: Hereford, Birmingham, Kidderminster, Oxford and Bristol directly.

Evesham United were founded in 1945. They started in the Worcester League before switching to the Worcestershire Combination in 1951. They won the competition twice before moving into the Birmingham & District League. In the 1960-61 season they were coached by former Coventry City captain Charlie Timmins. Not long afterwards the club were back in the Worcestershire Combination. Which then became the current Midland Combination. The club won three titles in the division before snatching promotion to the Southern League. Coached by former Coventry City player David Busst in 2004-05, they won promotion to the Southern League Premier, but were relegated after one season. In 2008 the club made it to the FA Cup 1st round where they lost 2-0 at Torquay, but not before they knocked Rushden & Diamonds out 2-0. The 2008-09 season was the club's best finish when they ended the season in 9th place. They have made it to the FA Trophy 4th round and the FA Vase Quater finals.

St George's Lane is regarded by some hoppers as one of the best in the country with its wooden main stand running along one side and the old terrace opposite. The record attendance is 17,042 which was for an FA Cup game against Sheffield United. The club are soon to leave St. George's Lane and build a new 6,000 capacity ground in Nunnery Way.

I had had a busy day visiting 8 grounds already with the Southern League game between Evesham and Supermarine. You enter the ground in the South West corner where you pay £11 (or in my case £3). Once inside you are met by two friendly people selling programmes and raffle tickets. I bought a programme which included a team sheet. If you look immediately to your right, there is City's club shop, toilets and the entrance to the clubhouse. This runs right underneath the main stand, with 3 TV's showing the scores. There is a bar selling drinks and a few tables set out to form a club shop. Back outside the dressing rooms are right in front of you with the ground entrance to your right. Behind the goal straight ahead of you is the west goal with 4 steps of terracing and long crush barriers running along. Going round the corner there is 8 steps of terracing and a TV gantry in the centre, this is presumably for WCTV or FA Cup games. There is then the large covered terrace taking up the other half of the side. This contains a dozen steps of terracing with some friendly (really!) graffiti on the back wall. Behind the next goal is raised flat standing with the canal behind. This proved to be a bit of a problem with high shots. The other side ios taken up completely by the main stand. This is a mixture of wooden, plastic and bench seats in 4 blocks. The roof is quite low so the stand is quite poorly lit in November. At the back there is a radio booth, however this was not in use for todays game. Some of the seats in the stand had stickers on them to indicate which season ticket holders owned them for the season. In front of the stand is a small paddock with 2 steps of terracing.
The game started extremely slowly with very few chances created. It stayed at 0-0 at the interval so we left the main stand to gety a bite to eat. Whilst at the refreshment van, which was selling chips, burgers, hot dogs, soft drinks, coffee and tea, we saw that an Evesham United player had been sent out to collect tea and coffee's for the players. A few people were a bit disgruntled by the fact the chips would take another 10 minutes to cook, however the people were working extremely hard to satisfy their customers so I congratulate them for that.
The second half showed no sign of improvement until the last few minutes when Evesham came close on a couple of occasions. However 3 minutes into stoppage time Hopper headed in a corner to the joy of the dozen travelling supporters.
I visited the ground with my brother, uncle and cousin. All of whom rarely went to non league football and really enjoyed it. The particularly liked the fact you could hear what the players, ref and managers were shouting.

The programme is certainly plaudible seeming as Evesham are tennants at the ground and receive low gates. It is 48 pages with only the 12 of ads glossy. The front cover displays the club badge and match details. There is info on the opposition and fixtuires and results. There are a few match pictures and the latest news from the club and league.

Ground: 9/10
Programme: 7/10