FOOTBALL’S coming home.
Wokingham and Emmbrook have received approval from the FA to fund the ground improvements which will see them return to Lowther Road next season.
The Sumas have been forced to groundshare with Bracknell Town at Larges Lane this season due to Lowther Road not fully complying with the FA rules for Hellenic League stadia.
However, everything is now in place for Dan Bateman’s men to finally return to the borough at a ground complete with floodlights and a stand, as well as other necessary requirements.
The club say a full statement will be released later this month but have confirmed that they have been successful with their application to The FA for funding the ground improvements, a process headed by Mark Ashwell.
“It’s been the culmination of 20 years’ effort,” Ashwell told The Wokingham Paper.
“It’s coming together. We need to thank the Hellenic League and the Football Foundation, a side of the FA.
“I think they’ve still got to come to terms with the fact that we haven’t got the work in place by the end of the season but we will have it in place by the beginning of next.
“We need the Hellenic League and another arm of the FA, the administration side, to actually sanction us to be able to stay at step six, but I’m 99% sure they will do that.
“But it takes a bit of the Hellenic League talking to the FA and us coming up with an implementation plan that matches.”
He added: “Whatever happens we’re going to be doing the works, but it would seem a bit crass to be relegated and then come back in again, so I can’t see that. We’ve just got that bit to do.
“We turned the floodlights out at Finchampstead Road in May 1999. I was there and that was a sad day.
“Then we groundshared. The planning permission was the big thing, to get that, which we got three years ago. Once we got that, we had to get the funding.
“We’ve raised £40,000, which unlocks £98,000 from the FA. We’re working on the ground and there’s still work to do.
“We’re looking to get to ground grading G, which keeps us at step six, and then buffet it up to grade F, to go up to step five.”
Since the 1990s, Wokingham have shared grounds with Windsor and Eton, Egham, Flackwell Heath and Henley as well as Bracknell before finally receiving planning permission to develop Lowther Road in 2016 and return to the borough.
However, new rules for this campaign meant the Sumas had to move again and they considered the idea of voluntary relegation before agreeing a deal with Bracknell.
Jamie Goodwin (14), Alec McNab (13) and Emma Goodwin (12).
“A lot of work has been going in behind the scenes from the committee and from other people to do the clubhouse up,” said Sumas boss Bateman.
“It looks really nice in there now and it makes a big difference to the general feel of the place.
“I think it’s been 20 odd years we’ve been waiting to try and get home.
“We lost Finchampstead Road in 1999 I think so the time we actually do go home and have floodlights and are able to play the level of football we want to play at our own ground will be brilliant.
“We’re looking at entering an Allied Counties side next year so we’ve got Under-18s football at Lowther Road as well.”
And club president Ashwell is also confident that the developments at Lowther Road will be good for the residents of Wokingham.
“We’ve worked with the neighbours all the way,” he said.
“I will be speaking to the Emmbrook residents’ association and I was dreading this day in some ways, but only because it will stir it up again because there are some emotions around it.
“There always are when you put floodlights up, but the ones we’re putting up are like a curtain, you will not see it beyond where they are.
“We’re going to get the cars off the road at Lowther Road as part of this because at the moment they park out on the road whereas this project is to get self-contained.
“We definitely figure that the works will alleviate any community concerns which are there now.”
