Tunbridge Wells (1) 1 Unknown (o.g.) 22
Westfield (0) 1 Unknown 82
Attendance: 165
Entrance: Free
Programme: None
Mileage: 38/314
It’s been a strange couple of days that only pre-season can throw into the mix. On Sunday, we were supposedly due at the Emirates for the second day of the Arsenal’s pre-season tournament, but an error that I’ve never made before and would hope I never make again meant that whilst we were seated at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday watching the athletics we should also have been across London watching Arsenal thrash Lyon. Tickets purchased for the same day!
On to Tuesday and I pitched up at Culverden Stadium expecting to watch a pre-season repeat of last year’s FA Vase tie between Tunbridge Wells and Westfield, of Woking, except that the Westfield was that of East Sussex and the Sussex County League Division Three. In the same way that last season, I had no idea of the existence of Woking’s Westfield; the Sussex version had also passed me by.
Having no knowledge of the visitors I thought I should do a little research before the penning of this blog and I discovered a rather sad story, but one of resilience that I hope will, in time, have a happy ending.
At the end of last season, Westfield having failed a ground grading were relegated from Sussex County League Two and senior football to what will be renamed the Southern Combination and intermediate level status. Westfield finished outside of the relegation places but their appeal has fallen on deaf ears.
In September 2009, the clubhouse and changing rooms at their Parish Field ground were burnt to the ground, victim of a suspected arson attack. Three years earlier, a Westfield player, Graeme Kempster, was tragically killed in a car accident and his number six shirt was subsequently retired by the club and hung in the clubhouse in his memory. Amazingly, his shirt in its casing was about the only item to survive the fire and became a symbol for the club’s rise from the ashes.
A new ground has been on the horizon ever since, but it has not come to fruition quickly enough for the hierarchy of the Football Association and, albeit that Westfield were given fair warning, they have suffered demotion from senior football as a consequence.
Tunbridge Wells are also a club in transition and the team that took to the resplendent looking green baize of Culverden looked quite different from the one that I saw at Chatham just 10 days ago. Into the second half, and after a first half wearing white shirts, they appeared a different team yet again, in red shirts! All quite bizarre.
Of the newcomers, a young central defender, Ollie Cook, from Maidstone United’s youth set-up and a tricky winger, Ehis Izokun caught the eye. Tunbridge Wells really should have been good enough to earn a confidence-building substantial win, but good goalkeeping and a late equaliser rewarded their visitors with a hard earned share of the spoils.
The departure of Chris Seenan to Ryman League South Whitstable has left a sizeable hole in the goalscoring department, something that the new man at the helm, Keith Bird is obviously trying to rectify with the number of new players coming through the door. They cannot all be kept happy at a club of the Wells’ size and some will almost certainly be here today, gone tomorrow, but of course that is also the nature of pre-season.
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