Tonbridge Football Archives

When I started pulling together a blog about North Tonbridge Juniors, it was quickly apparent how warmly everyone spoke about the club, whether it was former players, managers or club officials. So many people have been willing to help out in piecing together the various memories, photos, newspaper clippings and paperwork. It has turned this blog into what now appears to be mammoth project on North Tonbridge Juniors. The aim of the blog is to capture the history of the club, the spirit of the club and share great old photographs and stories. I will be splitting the story of North Tonbridge Juniors into three separate blogs, roughly into three different eras that the club existed, as I have gathered so much information, I want to give each era a decent showcase. So the first blog will concentrate on the club's formation and its early years during the 1970s. North End of town Junior football in the early 1970s was played on Saturdays in the Tunbridge We...

Tonbridge Juniors - where it all began

Lockdown project I have always wanted to revisit the formation of Tonbridge Juniors and their early years. They are the club very close to my heart. Long before I was involved in the club, in early 2000s I always remember hearing the dulcet tones of PA system drifting across the Racecourse Sportsground into my garden for two days every summer as part of the Tonbridge Football Fiesta. As soon as my football mad son was old enough, he joined the Under 6s training sessions with Brian Tippett in 2007. And as coaches know, you offer to help out and before you know, you are sucked in and next thing you know you are managing a team. Both Ben Sceal and myself were those two new coaches for as we moved to Under 7s in 2008. But the experience has been immensely rewarding, filled in so many happy memories, laughs and friendships. Fourteen years on, I am still at the club and now managing my daughters team. So with the Covid-19 pandemi...

Clark Rural Boys League - football for Sennockians

Whilst my blogs have been centred around Tonbridge football clubs, the Clark Rural Boys League was the launchpad for the North Tonbridge Juniors and a few years later the short lived Grange Farm Rangers. So I thought it would be sensible head north on the A225 for my latest blog. Plasmarc of Dunton Green The birth of Clark Rural Boys Football League appears to be linked to a youth football coaching school set up in the early 1970s sponsored by Plasmarc Company who were a Dunton Green based company. The coaching school operated on Sunday mornings by a group of FA qualified coaches and typically had up to 60 players turning up to play, normally divided into two groups. With the success of the football coaching, there was a desire amongst players and no doubt parents as well to move onto competitive football. By the spring of 1973, a number of new football clubs were being formed off the back of the coaching school and a local league was mooted, which resulted in th...