Derelict Football Grounds - Woodford Town Traditional Cache

NOW A SMALL MAGNETIC NANO - PLEASE REPLACE AS FOUND!
 

I have always had an interest in urban decay and football although previously i had not put the two together... Until I found a website dedicated to uran decay in London namely www.derelictlondon.com and found a link that identified a number of now derelict or demolished football grounds. Finding a number quite close to me i thought this would be a good opportunity to create a small series of caches to celebrate what was once there.

This cache can be found off of Snakes Lane East and was the home ground of a once famous non-league club, Woodford Town FC who are now defunct having folded in 2003.

Brief History of the Club

Woodford Town FC was formed in 1937, initially playing in local leagues before becoming founder members of the Delphian League in 1951. In 1961 they moved into the Metropolitan League and then joined the Greater London League in 1967, however within three years they had moved back to the Metropolitan League.

At the end of the 1970–71 season they joined Division One South of the Southern League which was a step too high for them and left after finishing bottom of the league. They joined the Esex Senior League in 1976 and then in 1979 switched to the Athenian League. In 1982 they moved back into the Southern League. Then followed a brief period of success whereby the Club played in the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1986 losing to Piacenza in the semi and then to Merthyr Tydfil in the third place play off. The following season they finished third in the Southern League and reached the first round of the FA Cup for the first time, they dropped back into the Essex Senior League at the end of the season.

In 1993 the club lost the ground where the cache can be found and moved to the Spartan League. However, they left the league in 1998 and dropped into the London Intermediate League and then returned to the Essex Senior League in 1999. They remained in the league until being voted out in 2003 after finishing bottom of the league for three seasons in a row.

The great Johnny Haynes played for Woodford Town as a schoolboy and Jimmy Greaves also played briefly for the club at the end of his career.

Modern Day

There has been talk of this club reforming however as of 2012 the club remains dissolved and the ground in a state of decay and disrepair. The gates to the ground are looked and secure, however of you go down the alley down the side you can see into the ground and see what remains of this once famous footbal club.