Trowbridge Town

[comrade powell]

Interesting article charting the history of our old rivals...

https://southern-football-league.co.uk/News/127518/What-Went-Wrong

Amazing to think we haven't played them in the league for 37 years. I can remember watching local derbies with them regularly in the 60s and 70s when there would be crowds of 3000+ at TP while nearly 9000 saw a cup match in 1958!

I used to enjoy watching the matches at Frome Road - a very basic ground but the old stand had real character.
I think my last visit was when they opened the season v Dover - it was following our promotion at the Kent club's expense. The visiting fans were still moaning about it but didn't seem to notice Phil Weaver wearing a City hat!

(apologies to Luton for the link to the SL site! )

[stillmanjunior]

Rhymes with Keith Brown. A few people will get that.

I went to watch Melksham play four years ago and on the pitch just outside their reserves were playing what I believe is the present Trowbridge. Was a county level game, not even a roped off pitch.

Our last meeting there was their highest Alliance League crowd - 1967 on Boxing Day 1983.

[Luton Roman]

Remember a home game in torrential rain, crowd 2000 or so, all packed into the sides of the ground, hardly anyone behind the goals. Mike England scored?

[LB]

Remember a home game in torrential rain, crowd 2000 or so, all packed into the sides of the ground, hardly anyone behind the goals. Mike England scored?

I think that was the New Year game in the 83/84 season. I seem to recall that season that it snowed before the Boxing Day game at Trowbridge and that someone had built a snowman in the centre circle! It might just be memory playing tricks on me of course. The kick off was delayed but the pitch was cleared enough to make it playable - these days it would have been postponed without a second thought.

The Trowbridge article misses out the time in the mid 80s when Les Alderman was the manager and the stand burnt down. I remember a friendly game at Trowbridge around that time when some of us got into an argument with a dishevelled man behind one of the goals. After he had gone one of the Trowbridge fans said that it was their manager, the said Les Alderman!

[Peter Newman]

In the late 1960s I recall going to Trowbridge on a Friday evening to watch them play Wisbech. The reason being that we were battling Wisbech for a promotion place and the next day they were playing us in the final game of the season.
I believe the bulk of the crowd were City fans supporting Trowbridge as a defeat for Wisbech would mean we would gain promotion,provided we won the next day. Well Trowbridge won as did City.
Trowbridge is constantly expanding due to housing development so it's a shame no land can be found for a ground or that the current location can not be enhanced.

[comrade powell]

Remember the Wisbech game at TP as if it was yesterday. An own goal set up our win. It was 1966, a few weeks before the World Cup.

[City 'til we're relegated]

In those heady days for Trowbridge I remember reading in the Bath Evening Chronicle that Bath City cannot compete for players with Trowbridge Town. They were highly ambition and, with Birchenall as manager, they recruited the commercial manager duo who got Hereford United into the Football League. A lottery was launched with a car as first prize every week. It was not long before the funds raised were insufficient to support the club at that stage. Later they entered into an arrangement with the Bath based building company, Beazer Homes. They sponsored Trowbridge and paid for an option to purchase Frome Road for housing, but promised to build the club a smart new stadium on an alternative site. A recession came that hit the building industry hard and Bezer homes went out of business and Trowbridge’s dreams were in tatters. With mounting debts they took the on,y way out and sold their Frome Road ground. After clearing debts the club were left with around £100,000 in the kitty and entered a ground share at Twerton Park. During that season in Bath they discovered that they had to pay Capital Gains Tax of around £100,000. That was the end of the Trowbridge Town we all knew. I believe that local Councils should have a responsibility to ensure that their people are served by a sports stadium, and if there is none, to provide on for clubs to hire, similar to the system in France.

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