Comment: Council spoilsports are astro-turfing me out

Newsdesk • Published 1 Nov 2009 10:00 0 Comments

by Jason Harris

Paranoid I may be but my blood has been boiling of late over the dramatic and some would say disastrous cut-backs the council have made in their sports and leisure facilities.

It feels like Wokingham Borough Council have some sort of personal vendetta against me and my sporting exploits.

First of all, as a local footballer who has plied his trade at Laurel Park in Lower Earley for some 25 years, you can imagine my horror when I heard they were closing our changing rooms as a cost-cutting exercise.

Although the many kids teams continue to play at what used to be one of the best facilities in the area, senior football has become impossible with nowhere to shower after or even take a leak beforehand.

We've been forced out of our spiritual home but there is some hope of a reprieve with talk of a possible takeover by the town council.

With no game last Sunday, I thought I would take the opportunity to turn to my second sporting love - golf - with a relaxing nine holes at the once renowned Hurst Golf Course. So I rolled up to the clubhouse to find it too had been boarded up - yes you've guessed it, another cost-cutting exercise. I was driven to despair when I learned that you now have to pay at the cafe at Dinton Pastures and tee off from what used to be the seventh tee. As I made my way around the fairways I was disappointed to find that the course was not up to its usual high standards with the greens needing a good cut and the bunkers (many of which I visited) were devoid of any real sand. It is no wonder then that the former members of Hurst Golf Club have decided to take their membership and money to Hennerton Golf Club in Wargrave - leaving the hackers to tear up Hurst and give me good cause for a rant.

With sport a major part of my life I am absolutely devastated to see the doors of local facilities being slammed in my face.

To complete an unwanted hat-trick of sporting disasters, my team rolled up for winter training at the revamped astro pitch at Cantley Park - only to leave disappointed in the £180,000 investment. At first glance, the newly-laid carpet looks magnificent but once it is wet, it turns into an ice rink and several changes of footwear don't seem to help. There are no full-size football goals for us to practise set-pieces or shooting drills and there isn't even a football pitch marked out.

I also hear that Wokingham Football Club, a team I reported on every week in my many years on the sports desk, looks set to be forced out of the town. Will the people in power at Shute End not be satisfied until they have dismantled all our clubs and venues at grass roots level?

- Maurice O'Brien is away

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