Brentwood Town v Harlow Town

Brentwood Arena

Pre-season friendly

August 1, 2015

Ground No 169

BRENTWOOD. Present or erstwhile home of Pixie Lott, Frank Bruno, Steve Davis, Frank Lampard, Jodie Marsh and Chantelle Houghton.

 

It's also home of the less famous Brentwood Town FC, although football in the town has a long history - with arguably more to be proud of than at least two of the above.

 

For example the original club bearing the town's name went all the way to the FA Cup quarter-finals in 1886 where they lost to eventual winners Blackburn Rovers.

 

More recently, in the 1970s, their star striker was none other than England legend Jimmy Greaves, though he was unable to keep up his record of scoring on his debut as he had done for Chelsea, AC Milan, Spurs and West Ham.

 

All of that was long before the current Brentwood Town, formed in 1954, moved to their current home in the shadow of the town's leisure centre.

 

They went there in 1993 after a spell of ground-sharing with East Thurrock having been based at Larkin's Playing Field before that and are now looking forward to their first season of Ryman League Premier Division football.

 

Today's opponents were Harlow who finished 18 points above Brentwood last season but, while their hosts went up, they missed out in the play-offs. Football can be a cruel mistress.

 

The stadium lies within the grounds of the Brentwood Centre leisure hub so it's easy to find and there are plenty of parking spaces right outside.

 

Entry is via turnstiles in the corner of the ground. To the left is a spacious covered standing area with shallow terracing behind the goal while to the right you come to a couple of portable buildings (I thought one of them may have been a tea hut but on peering in through the open door I found it contained a lawnmower, the machine they use to mark out the pitch and some tools) and then the main stand.

 

The stand is a wooden structure with around 150 seats with the changing rooms and a homely bar/tea bar which served a lovely cuppa for a quid and offered a good view of the pitch which would come in handy on those cold winter evenings.

 

That's pretty much it as far as the ground goes, with strips of hard standing around the rest of the pitch - ringed by a wooden fence - and two brick-built dug-outs and a video gantry on the other.

 

It's not the most charismatic of grounds, but it certainly does the job. And if I was being critical I could say it doesn't look like a great deal has been done to it since it opened in 1993.

 

But I don't want to do them down. Under the management of former Wimbledon and Bolton striker Dean Holdsworth they're on a roll  and it would be nice to think they can get some decent-sized crowds in next season to get the place rocking.