Kent sports grounds | Vital Football

Kent sports grounds

Been to most of those grounds down the years. Anyone ever go to watch Afghan Hound racing at Rochester Greyhound Stadium?
 
Been to most of those grounds down the years. Anyone ever go to watch Afghan Hound racing at Rochester Greyhound Stadium?
Yep, been there many times, also played a Rochester & district under 18's football cup-final at the Kent Alloys fantastic pitch many years ago. Now filled up with Swains lorries I believe.
 
Yep, been there many times, also played a Rochester & district under 18's football cup-final at the Kent Alloys fantastic pitch many years ago. Now filled up with Swains lorries I believe.

I also used to go to the youth finals at Kent Alloys and played on it lunchtimes when I was apprentice there. One of the old timers told me that Shorts FC used to play semi pro there for a period (not sure if true).

The last part of the pitch went when the Cast Iron foundry was extended. I remember we were called out to see the mammoth tusk that had just been uncovered, within the few minutes it took us to run there the digger had smashed it to pieces as otherwise there would have been a ‘delay’ :(
 
Not to that standard in terms of pro sports grounds but my bus to school used to pass the old Trebor sweet company's football pitch on the London Rd (quite close to Maidstone utd's old ground) and I would dream of playing on it purely because it was probably the flattest, best manicured piece of grass I'd ever seen. (And it had REAL goals with nets in the same style as Wembley!!!)
Some years later my Sunday team reached a local cup final and I realised my dream of playing on it. It might as well have been Wembley, a real dream come true and yes, it played as good as it looked. Happy days 😉


Oh and we won 🏆
 
Thanks for that a trip down memory lane for me .I have to admit to being more of a Kent cricket fan than a Gills fan before I moved to London in the mid eighties. Gills in part have Sir Keith to blame for getting me totally hooked again .Having very few Saturdays off when I worked locally ment I would be able to see far more Cricket and in that era Kent were superb .Some lovely old pictures I will plough through that article in the coming days.
 
Great link, Buddha. I've been to most of them - great old pics of Priestfield.

Such a shame that they've made such a mess of the St Lawrence Ground - still can't understand how they have sold off pretty much every scrap of land in and around the ground outside the playing surface and current stands for flats, house, shops, flats etc, meaning there is no room for parking any more and little room for development of the actual ground, which must have raked in a fortune, yet the club seem not to have a pot to piss in?

Also a shame that Folkestone race course - a couple of miles up the road from me - closed and seems destined to be built on with yet more unwanted identikit housing, thanks to the greed of local landowners, Folkestone Council and speculators.

Also, I had fond memories of going to the moat to see Kent. It's a pity they took cricket from a real Kent County town, with lots of enthusiastic fans there, and took it to London instead.