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Normandy Football Club

It is probable that the early 1920s saw the start of senior football in the village, for by 1925/6 the Normandy team was playing on what is now known as Roughs Farm.

Normandy Football Club 1925-26
Normandy Football Club 1925-26
The team is pictured at their ground on the corner of Pirbright Road and School Lane. Normandy Park Lodge can be seen in the background.
Back Row L-R: Wilfred Sewry, unknown, Bert Goodchild, Les Lance, Les Harrison, Bill Wiltshire, Benjamin Boyer.
Middle Row L-R: Len Summers, ? Summers, Sid Packham.
Front Row L-R: ? Beer, unknown, Doug Roberts, Pat Goodchild, unknown.
If you know any of the others in this photo please let us know

The present Normandy Football Club had its beginnings in the 1950s. A group of keen footballers, Tom Turner, Ken Hunt, Bob Stiff, Michael Boyd, Bernard Hobbs, Fred Mayhead and others, decided that instead of playing the occasional match for the Junior Technical College, Guildford, they would try to form a Normandy team. Ken was Secretary and Fred was Fixtures Secretary. Their first matches were played at Aldershot Park since there was no home ground in Normandy.

In 1955 the Parish Council decided to construct a pitch on the parish owned land at Hunts Hill Road and engaged Glover Bulldozers Ltd to carry out the work estimated at £420. The work took over two years to complete, owing to wrangling between the dissatisfied Council and the contractor. To hasten completion, players, scouts and school children from Wyke School helped to clear the pitch of stones before sowing the grass seed. Mid Wessex Water Co. installed a water service to the ground at a cost of £35 with the club members back-filling the trench. The first full season of football started in 1958 with the maintenance of the pitch shared between the club and the Council in lieu of rent.

Normandy Football Club

The first clubhouse was a meagre affair, being a green tin shack attached to an old Nissen hut, within which, both teams changed. In 1975 the club replaced the shack with a recovered prefabricated bungalow, previously used elsewhere as emergency accommodation for bombed out families during World War II. The building, held on a five-year lease from the Council, was luxurious by comparison with its predecessor, the tin shack, providing separate changing rooms, toilets, showers and kitchen. Electricity and water were connected but the building had to wait until 1986 to be connected to the main sewer by Vine Excavations Ltd of Dunsfold at a cost of £6,200 to the Council. This building survived more than one five year period of leasing but the increasing cost of its maintenance became a drain on the finances of the club and in 1984 the Council purchased it for £1. Early in 1990 the building was destroyed by fire and the present pavilion erected in its place.

Both pavilion and pitch are rented seasonally from the Council and by other organisations in the summer.


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