No more nappy sacks needed to clear up the dog mess – Paulsgrove excited about ground move after 59 years

Ahead of the Hampshire Premier League club’s 60th anniversary season, they have taken the decision to quit ‘the hill’ and move less a mile away to brand new facilities.

Starting with next weekend’s opening friendly against New Milton, Grove will be playing home matches on a 4G pitch at the Hampshire FA owned King George V complex in Cosham.

Club officials fervently hope it will be the start of a journey which will one day lead to them following Fleetlands, Baffins and Bush Hill (now Millbrook) into the Wessex League.

Commercial manager Macer Corcoran told The News: “We probably had the worst facilities in the league (at their previous Marsden Road ground).

“As it’s council owned, we had no control over the public - before every game we had to bring the nappy sacks to clear dog mess off the pitch.

“I think we’ve been forgotten about - people think as we’re up on the hill we’re out of the way.

“We want to push the club forward and, if we want to attract better footballers, we need better facilities.

“It’s an exciting time, it’s a good opportunity for us that we’ve never had before.

“We had a meeting with the Hampshire FA and they said we were always their first choice as we’re in the same postcode.”

Asked about Grove’s ambitions, Corcoran continued: “We want to run the club sustainably.

“One day we’d like to get into the Wessex League, but that’s a long way off, it’s a minimum of three years before we can even contemplate that.

“Look at Bush Hill. Four years ago they were playing Paulsgrove, now they’re in the Wessex League Premier.

“They were the Paulsgrove of Southampton, but they merged with a youth club and they took over the old Solent University ground.

“It can be done, they’re a good example of what can happen if you have good people at the club. And we’ve got good people with the club at heart.”

Corcoran freely concedes Grove haven’t enjoyed the best disciplinary record in past seasons, but insists a negative reputation is now a thing of the past.

“I won’t tolerate it,” he stated. “It won’t happen again. We can’t afford it to happen - Hampshire FA have trusted us and allowed us to play on their pitches.”

At all levels of the non-league pyramid, every penny counts. And that was behind the decision to disband Grove’s reserve team midway through 2023-24.

Corcoran recalled: “Having a reserve team was costing around £2,000 and we weren’t getting anything back.

“Johnny (Willett, former first team manager) was having to take a few players out of his squad because the reserves were short. You can’t run a football club like that.

“Sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward and the reserves were unsustainable financially.

“Costs are always rising. Last year we had four referees from the Isle of Wight and they were £75 each. It cost us £68 to hire the pitch so that’s almost £150 for a home game - you don’t want two of those a month.”

Grove, who recently appointed former Baffins Milton Rovers boss Louis Bell as manager, are hoping their supporters will follow them the short distance to King George V.

“I was talking to our supporters last season and telling them what our plans were, and they were ‘go for it. You have to go for it to move forward’. Hopefully they will still follow us - it’s not a million miles away.”

*Mob Albion will also be playing their home games at the King George V complex in 2024-25.

Last season’s Mid-Solent League champions had been hoping to win promotion to the Hampshire Premier League’s second tier, but missed out by one vote.