THE ABC OF GRAYS THURROCK UNITED (1924
– 1932)
Until it was pebble-dashed over a
few years ago, the faded half-time scoreboard painted on the side of a house at
Grays Athletic’s Recreation Ground was something of a curio for a couple of
reasons. In the days before transistor
radios and SMS text alerts, half-time scoreboards were common at Football
League venues, but it was unusual to find one at an amateur ground. More unusual still was that the scoreboard
bore the name of Grays Thurrock FC, and not Grays Athletic as one would
expect. Who were these impostors and
what were they doing at Grays Athletic’s long established ground?
Amateur football was very much the
order of the day in Essex in the 1920s. Professional footballers living and working
in the county had to find non-league clubs outside Essex ,
a situation a group of transport and dock workers based in the Grays and
Tilbury area decided to do something about.
After a series of meetings a new professional club, Grays Transport
& District FC, was formed on February 25th 1924, the committee being
made up of men residing in Grays, Tilbury, Gravesend
and the surrounding locality. After
being turned down by the Southern League, the new club, now going under the
name of Grays Thurrock United, opted to the join the Kent League for the
1924/25 season, a more convenient arrangement than it sounds, as the Tilbury to
Gravesend ferry was only a short trip away. It was assumed that Grays Thurrock would move
in with Grays Athletic at the Recreation Ground, but the trustees of the ground
surprisingly resisted their overtures, and so preparations were made to upgrade
The Lawn in Little Thurrock, a playing field that had been playing host to
junior football since the late 19th century.
Located off Dock Road , close to the Bull Inn, The
Lawn was just over half a mile from the Recreation Ground and, fearful that
their new rivals would steal a march on them, Grays Athletic resigned from the
London League and joined Grays Thurrock in the Kent League, which comprised
both professional and amateur clubs. Despite
a lack of spectator facilities, an encouraging crowd of 3,000 made their way to
The Lawn on September 4th 1924 to see Grays Thurrock take on Sheppey
United in their first match in the Kent League. A couple of old army huts were converted
into changing rooms and club offices and, as the months went by, the ground was
gradually improved, with a post and rail replacing the original rope around the
pitch, and a wooden grandstand coming into use in early 1925. The first local derby between the two Grays
clubs took place in December 1924, an eagerly awaited event which saw an
attendance of 4,000–5,000, with some spectators using the skeleton of the not yet
completed stand as a vantage point.
Grays Thurrock made another attempt
to join the Southern League (Eastern Section) in 1925, and this time they were
successful. After just one season at The
Lawn, Grays Thurrock signed a deal with the trustees of the Recreation Ground
and became joint tenants at Bridge
Road with Grays Athletic. As part of the groundsharing deal, the
grandstand at The Lawn was transported to the Recreation Ground, but only after
long discussions took place with Grays Athletic about where to site to it, and
how the revenue from the stand would be divided up. The Recreation Ground in those days was a
sprawling arena which also included an athletics track and a cricket
ground. There was talk of sawing the
grandstand in half, but eventually space was found for it on the side opposite
the main stand. It wasn’t possible to
position the grandstand on the half-way line because of the athletics track, so
it was placed off-centre on the outfield of the cricket ground, a decision
which forced Grays Cricket Club to leave the Recreation Ground, never to return.
Despite the strength of the
opposition, Grays Thurrock more than held their own during their inaugural Southern
League campaign in 1925/26 and in the summer of 1926 they left their mark at
the Recreation Ground when a half-time scoreboard bearing the club’s name, and
featuring two adverts in the club’s red colours, was painted on the gable end
of a house facing on to the Bradbourne Road end of the ground. The enormous costs of financing a
professional team, particularly in a period of economic depression took its
toll, and in an effort to stem their losses, Grays Thurrock said goodbye to the
Recreation Ground in 1929 and moved back to The Lawn, taking their much
travelled grandstand with them. The Lawn was to witness only one season of
Southern League football however, for after finishing bottom two years running,
Grays Thurrock left the Southern League at the end of the 1929-30 season,
taking the place of their reserves in the Kent League.
With Grays Athletic trying to
exploit the boom in greyhound racing by building a track on part of the
Recreation Ground in 1930, Grays Thurrock decided to install one of their own at
The Lawn the same year, though it was hardly what one would call White
City. A fence was laid over the edges of
the football pitch, and rudimentary lighting was installed around the
ring. Just how chaotic the arrangements
were was emphasised by the fact that an early season match in 1931 saw the
kick-off delayed while staff rushed to remove the fencing from the playing
area.
It was no great surprise when Grays
Thurrock United’s financial problems saw them fold at the end of the 1931-32
season. Brief though their existence was,
for a short time at least, they brought top flight non-league football to
Grays, something the riverside town would not experience for another 75
years. By 1934, The Lawn had
disappeared beneath a new housing estate, though a link with the past was
maintained when the builders decided to call the road Lawns Crescent .
The Lawn being demolished in 1934. |
The half-time scoreboard at the Bradbourne Road end of The Rec. Pic Gavin Ellis. |
Grays Thurrock v Grays Athletic in a Kent League fixture at The Lawn in December 1924. The attendance was between four to five thousand. |
The Lawn in 1931, showing a greyhound meeting. |
Team line-up from the first season in 1924/25, showing the Army huts that served as dressing rooms at The Lawn. |