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Sunday 24 December 2023

Home For Christmas

Butlin Road, home of Rugby Town FC, last Saturday when the home side took on Quorn in the Midland Division of the Northern Premier League.

Images of Butlin Road, Rugby Town FC, December 2023

'The Valley' are my home town team and I spent many years as I was growing up coming to Butlin Road whenever Coventry City were not in action or away from home.

These were very much the glory years in the history of the club, then called VS Rugby but now back to the name that reflects their original formation.

Jimmy Know made sure that his name would forever be a part of football's rich folklore, the Scot who had spent most of his adult life around the footballing scene in Coventry and Warwickshire, took VS to Wembley glory in the 1983 FA Vase and to within a whisker of promotion to non-league's top tier.

With the Sky Blues having left Highfield Road in 2005, that comforting familiarity, of somewhere you were happy as a youngster and that largely remains as you remember it, comes from Butlin Road nowadays in footballing terms.

While the layout is mostly the same, it now boasts an excellent main stand, comfortable bar and all-weather pitches behind one goal, improvements that have allowed the club to become more of a part of the local community and insure themselves against some fallow years on the pitch and a wider apathy in the town itself.

Despite promotion last season, attendances still tend to hover around the 200 mark and there were less than that watching as Quorn overcame the loss of an early goal to run out comfortable 4-1 winners as the 40th anniversary year of that Vase triumph draws to a close.

On a day when the retail parks were busy (the town centre retains the layout I grew up with but, alas, has been hollowed out as shops have decamped further out) I sincerely hope that the current period of stable, secure ownership can last for many more milestones to come.

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