Ahead of my afternoon game at The Valley, I had planned and hoped to take in a Middlesex County League Premier Division game between Sporting Hackney against Indian Gymkhana Club at the Feel Good Too Sports Centre in Leyton. But although the league’s fixture website always indicated an 11.30 kick off, just as I was leaving home, I noticed a tweet stating that the game would be kicking off at 12.30, although as it was a new, anonymous account who posted that, and neither participating club are exactly prolific with their presence on Twitter, I headed there on the off chance, but sure enough, the only action happening on the pitch shortly before 11.30 was some children’s football. A 12.30 kick off would mean I would either have to leave at half time, or miss the first quarter of an hour or so at The Valley. And so instead I walked a mile away to the Lea Bridge area of Leyton to visit the abandoned Hare and Hounds Ground, the former home of Leyton FC until the club sadly folded due to financial issues in 2011.
Since that time, the ground has perhaps surprisingly not been redeveloped, but instead has been left to decay, and has been mostly used as a car park and a dumping ground by a neighbouring restaurant.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the Hare & Hounds to watch a game. Today, much of the ground is actually still intact, surprisingly, with the turnstile blocks (complete with turnstiles), tea bar and the old fashioned main stand still in reasonable condition, currently partly obscured by a marquee. Perhaps the stand in the best condition is the all-seater stand behind one end, although it has had plenty of junk thrown in there. The various stands along one length are in a very poor state, with the roofing and back walls falling down in places, seats broken and a lot of junk thrown inside, although the dugouts are still in place.
It all just seems such a terrible waste of a historic and rather quirky football ground. It is always still sad to see grounds redeveloped into “yet another” block of flats or bland shopping centre, but to see the ground just left to rot after more than ten years just seems so senseless. But all the time it is not redeveloped, there remains a faint glimmer of hope that it could be restored as a footballing venue, with a campaign group fighting hard to get football back at the Hare & Hounds. Their campaign page can be viewed by clicking here, and a YouTube video of some memories of the ground can be viewed by clicking here
1 comment:
I went to the Hare & Hounds as a young lad with my older brother round about 1955.
We would go on Sunday mornings to see matches in the Hackney and Leyton Sunday League, couple of teams I remember are Pembury and Chatsworth.
Facilties we're pretty basic then and the Gents was up on a mound of earth surrounded by sheets of corrugated iron
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