Two New Stadiums - Sandy Park and Westpoint

Exeter Chiefs, the owners of the old County Ground in St Thomas, sold off their ground to Bellway, the developer. They created a problem in order to make a lot of money. They didn't give a damn about their tenants, the speedway club, Exeter Falcons.

Exeter rugby club would like to remain withint the boundaries of Exeter City council and have therefore secured a site for their 'new stadium' at Sandy Park, right next to the M5 at Sandy Gate. Exeter speedway are now homeless and desperate to build a track at the Westpoint showgrounds, on Sidmouth Road. However, the two may have problems.

The proposed rugby stadium is a pathetic, mickey mouse little effort, a tiny, paltry stadium of only 8,000 capacity, all hemmed in at what I would describe as the A379/M5 armpit, near the giant Sandy Gate roundabout. The 'stadium' will have just one grandstand, probably housing just 2,000 spectators; the rest will stand on old-fashioned terraces, none more than ten steps deep. The odd rugby ball may even land up on the M5 below, causing a massive pile-up.

Rugby is a quiet sport. Exeter Chiefs will never get more than a 5,000 attendance, and practice days will make no noise at all beyond a few loud-mouthed, boisterous rugby morons shouting the odd obscenity (when they're not grabbing each other's private parts in the scrum and drinking each other's piss down the pub afterwards. Are rugby players gay?). Speedway is a very noisy sport, with practice sessions making no less noise than match-day events. What is the solution?

Simple! The solution is for the speedway to take the Sandy Park site where they will race away right next to the real thing, another race-track, the M5 motorway! There will be absolutely no noise problem at all for any neighbours since Sandy Park is right beneath a motorway and is noisy day and night. The terrible din of speedway/motorcycle engines will make no difference when accompanied by the sound of hundreds of vehicles passing every minute above.

However, the rugby club, in their so-called '£50 million development' need to make some money and stay in the limits of Exeter City council, which is, in fact, the M5 motorway. Hence, the other side of the M5 - Westpoint - is actually in East Devon District Council. But Westpoint is also in open country side and right next door to a village - Clyst St Mary - and has lots of neighbours who don't like the sound of engines revving and late night practice sessions. (Who does?). There is no enormous M5 embankment to block off the noise and keep it hidden away in the A379/M5 armpit.

Sandy Park has been marketed as a £50 million scheme. Really, the whole scheme is a £2 million rugby stadium combined with a £20 million tennis/David Lloyd Centre (for the wealthy, £100 a month/corporate bunch) and £28 million of houses, to be built by Bellway on the old County Ground. Typical. Where is the ambition? Where is the vision? What will they name it? The M5 Stadium? The M5/A379 Armpit Stadium? It is a joke!

If the city and county planners had any intelligence at all - whatsoever! - they would place the Exeter Falcons speedway stadium by the M5 (it is a noisy motorway, after all!) where there would be no complaints whatsoever over noisy speedway. Then the rugby club could go to Westpoint instead. How's that for a solution? Either way, one of the two clubs must leave the city; since the rugby club initiated the whole scheme, let them leave the city and head off to Westpoint and East Devon.


Exeter Chiefs Rugby Club and the Sandy Park, mickey mouse development:

http://www.exeterchiefs.com/?Page=32

This page has an aerial photo of the proposed stadium development, showing the pitch/stadium itself totally hemmed in at the corner of the M5 and the A379. Pathetic!

Around Heavitree

Due to a fuel crisis, I left the Renault in the place where I usually park for work: the City Trading Estate. This is a small, superb new trading estate just off the Sidmouth Road, near the M5 at Sandygate. It is at the eastern end of the ancient Quarry Lane, which ran all the way from Heavitree and Wonford down to Bishops Court quarry which itself dates back several hundred years and is still operational today. Its fine red dust peppers the entire area; its insatiable appetite for red sandstone has allowed the creation of the Bishops Court Industrial Estate.

The City Trading Estate has about ten large, corrugated steel clad warehouses, the type favoured by such modern retailers as Original Style Ltd, a specialist in ceramic tiles and interior design. Indeed, they are so trendy that they were honoured two years ago by a visit from Tony Blair, the infamous war criminal. They have a notice board near the front door with pictures and newspaper cuttings of his visit. However, I think he called in because it is only two hundred yards from the M5 and he couldn’t be bothered to visit Exeter city centre.

The estate is built on an incline, leading up to Apple Lane footpath, another old lane which leads over the single track Exmouth branch line to the former lunatic asylum of Digby. In Victorian times – R Stark Wilkinson, 1886 - this vast building would have been a rural sanctuary, set out in the countryside of East Devon with no motorways, no railway lines, no distractions whatsoever; a haven of tranquillity for its depressed souls.

It has now been sold off, converted into flats and joined by hundreds of new houses, all forming a vast new estate. There are some interesting apartments in the old hospital, particularly those corners of the old towers; you might call it 'quadruple aspect', in estate agency parlance. Alas, there are hundreds more on the way, too, at Southam Fields, nearby; the former Southam Farm and its fine buildings have simply vanished.

Is Exeter to become a vast new metropolis?

This is just about the eastern limit of Exeter City Council before the M5 and East Devon District Council. So the new rugby stadium at Sandy Park, three hundred yards away over the A379, on the western banks of the M5, is only just within the city limits.

As usual, from the plans in the Express & Echo, the stadium will be hemmed in on two sides by roads - it is to be built in the very armpit of the M5 and the A379, two very busy roads - allowing no room for expansion whatsoever should the club become successful at a national level.

It has all been marketed as a £50 million scheme yet the stadium will entertain a paltry 8,000 spectators, some housed in a tiny grandstand. Typical. Where is the ambition? Where is the vision? What will they name it? The M5 Stadium? The M5/A379 Armpit Stadium?

Really, the whole scheme is a £2 million stadium combined with a £20 million tennis/David Lloyd Centre (for the wealthy, £100 a month/corporate brigade) and £28 million of houses, to be built on the site of the old County Ground in St Thomas. It is a joke!

If the city planners had any intelligence at all - whatsoever! - they would place the Exeter Falcons speedway stadium by the M5 (it is a noisy motorway, after all!) where there would be no complaints whatsoever over noisy speedway. Then the rugby club could go to Westpoint instead. How's that for a solution? Either way, one of the two clubs must leave the city; since the rugby club initiated the whole scheme, let them leave the city and head off to Westpoint and East Devon.

At any rate, Apple Lane is surely destined to become one of the busiest thoroughfares in the whole of Exeter, a far cry from its Victorian days as a tiny, rural footpath leading to... Sowton village? Similarly, the residents of Baxter Close and Clyst Halt Avenue - en route to the stadium from Digby and Sowton halt on the Exmouth line - are about to enjoy some very busy Saturday afternoons!

At the Rydon Lane end of Quarry Lane, yet more beautiful meadows have been given over to modern housing, their new roads and closes taking shape just like a short session of Sim City 3000. How long before Exeter’s population reaches 150,000? Ten years? Another five hundred flats are underway in the city centre (Isca Place and Princesshay and assorted other places).

Wingfield Park, the home of Heavitree United Football Club, is on the crest of a hill just off the main road, at 2 East Wonford Hill. Only its clubhouse – the Knoll, formerly Park Villa – is visible from the main road. This is a large, cream, Georgian house on top of a hill and there is no sign at all of a football pitch. There is not much to recommend further investigation. As a fan, however, of football grounds of all sizes and descriptions, I take note of the club notice by the main road, its list of upcoming fixtures, and decide to walk up the short driveway for the first time. There must be a football pitch hidden away somewhere.

Refreshingly, the scene at the summit is idyllic! Behind the tennis courts - there must be at least eight - you wonder where on earth the football pitch can be for this looks like a tennis club. But the ground rises still further and there is no other place to look.

Sure enough, past the tennis courts, you come, through a line of hedges, to a wire gate bearing a notice: £1 admission, includes programme. And there, in the distance and through the gate, is a large tract of open land: a football pitch. On the right is a grandstand, tiny but large enough to incorporate a large awning proudly stating: HEAVITREE UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB.

This is what I call ‘real football’, even more real than that available at St James Park, two miles away. God knows what league Heavitree United are now in, but I can easily imagine watching an FA Cup match here in September – at the most preliminary stage imaginable – and admiring the simple essence of non-league football and the Haldon Hills in the distance. After the match, you can retire to the social club for a friendly pint.

Wingfield Park has a large football pitch, all neatly surrounded by a small fence painted a brilliant white, all in the most careful manner. The main entrance to the ground proper is a mere three yards from the goal-line; there is no terracing at all and the 'grandstand' has about fifty seats. The goal area is worn away and there is a modest wall around the perimeter, enough to keep out any non-paying fans but not the view of the 1940s houses that surround this delightful football ground. It reminds me of Underhill, the home of Barnet Football Club, but without the slope.

I imagine the biggest derby match at this ground would be a visit from Clyst Rovers Football Club, another gem set at the end of a runway at Exeter International Airport.

It also reminds me that Heavitree Park is next door – a collection of very expensive Georgian villas - and that Wingfield Park is therefore a goldmine, probably at least £1 million of prime residential property estate. Who owns it and will it survive?

I head on into town via Fore Street, Heavitree, past the Blessed Sacrament church for Catholics, past St Loyes. The gate to St Loyes is open so I take the opportunity of looking inside for the first time ever; it has an enormous quadrangle inside, just like a barracks, yet a fine place to sit in the spring.



LINKS
Heavitree Social Centre (Heavitree United Football Club social club):
http://www.clubsline.com/social/heavi.html
Contains a picture of the place from the main road and some details of facilities and history of the place.

Exeter Chiefs Rugby Club and the Sandy Park, mickey mouse development:
http://www.exeterchiefs.com/?Page=32
This page has an aerial photo of the proposed stadium development, showing the pitch/stadium itself totally hemmed in at the corner of the M5 and the A379. Pathetic!

Catholic Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Heavitree (Exeter and East Devon Diocese):
http://www.plymouth-diocese.org.uk/parishes/exeter&devon/heavitree.htm

References:
3/Heavitree – Trevor Falla, Discovering Exeter series.
This is Part 3 of the superb Discovering Exeter series, in association with Exeter Civic Society, nine small but detailed books on different areas of Exeter. They contain superb descriptions of different areas and many interesting maps and photographs.

Honiton

Two hours in the Stoke Arms pub - my temporary new football home - to watch Aston Villa vs Man Utd on Sky TV. A disappoinging result, of course, but a fine pint of Guinness before heading off for a drive.

Mig and Cos get in the car and we head for the Black Horse pub at Clyst Honiton, another pub I have never been to but would like investigate. It is closed. Well, why not continue on to Honiton?

Along the old A30, past Rockbeare and the Jack-in-the-Green and Hand and Pen and then to Honiton for a visit to the High Street and the Carlton Bar and Brasserie. This a sort of 'modernist' pub, playing loud disco music - like something from Pete Tong - and not many customers, but interesting nonetheless. A young man at the bar is, presumably either drugged up or drunk, doing all manner of erratic, spontaneous dance movements with his hands as he sits on a stool by the bar. We finally discoverd the location of Spanky's nightclub, although it is shut tonight.

Back via Exmouth. A quick visit to the Sidwell Street kebab shops.

Among the Emigres (Stoke Arms inn)

It is a strange thing to visit, for the first time ever, the Stoke Arms pub, up at the beginning of Rosebarn Lane and the big roundabout, in the north-east of Exeter, only to mix with one French person and two Portuguese. But that was the situation on Sunday night, at the height of the Christmas season.

The Stoke Arms pub is monolithic; it is a traditional, sort of London-style, enormous, purpose-built pub, which stands several feet above the roundabout that is the busy junction of Prince Charles Road, Rosebarn Lane, Old Tiverton Road, Union Road, Stoke Hill and, finally, Mount Pleasant Road. It is one of the busiest roundabouts in the whole of Exeter, though its servants are all small, very old roads (apart from Prince Charles Road, probably post-War).

I understand that George Gissing, the great writer, was familiar with Rosebarn Lane, once a country lane between hedges – going up to the very top of Pennsylvania and Stoke Hill – though now entirely suburban with large detached houses and prim, well-kept front gardens. The Stoke Arms is, in a way, the pivot between all of these different social milieus: the council, the post-war detached affluent and the traditional, terraced Edwardian affluent, now split into untold numbers of student bedsits. At Exmouth Junction, it also used to have five hundred railway workers on its doorstep but they have long since vanished; the ideal spot for a two hundred apartment complex, I imagine.

Now, the Stoke Arms’ hinterland is the infamous Beacon Lane Estate, just behind, so you wonder what the place might be like. Would it be similar to the Devon Yeoman (another pub I have never visited). Then again, it is near to the studentville of Union Road so there may be a heavy university presence. Who knows?

The Stoke Arms is really two pubs in one, a lounge bar and a saloon bar, both of equal size yet separated by the main door. At this point you must make your choice since there is no other way between the two. It is like a forlorn metaphor for the old British class system, long since disintegrated (?). Upon entering the Saloon Bar – my natural habitat – I immediately came across M and his two friends, the Frenchman Morgan and Carlos, the Portuguese.

There is the most extraordinary music playing on the jukebox, accompanied by Morgan, arms aloft, singing, waving his arms wildly, totally engrossed by the music of his homeland. The rest of the pub is quiet, just enjoying a pint. Probably bemused by the whole spectacle. The paradox is almost freakish – a traditional, surburban, English pub buried away in an unheard of part of Exeter, rocking to the folk strains of Roscoff or Morlaix. What sort of jukebox is that?

‘Ziss eez... zee musique of Brit-annee.’ Morgan is ecstatic.

He also has the real, authentic French accent, almost a parody of Rene Artois, the cafe proprietor in the great tv series 'Allo 'Allo. Or Eric Cantona. I am beginning to prepare myself for excited talk of seagulls, sardines and trawlers. The blue and white rugby shirt completes the cliche.

We play pool, doubles, for a while (on a silly red table).

Actually, the Stoke Arms is a very nice pub; a good range of beers and a nice atmosphere, nice people and... an awesome jukebox. The Music jukebox is one of those modern ones, all linked to the Internet which means... you can literally select any song ever recorded and published anywhere in the entire world. Hence the music of Britanny in Stoke Hill.

On its front, the jukebox proclaims: 2 MILLION SONGS. When you think that, twenty years ago, you had a large jukebox - the size of a piano - yet only 100 songs to choose from, you realise the sheer power of modern technology. The smaller the jukebox becomes, the more powerful it becomes, linked to that greatest jukebox of all, the Internet. The Music jukebox machine is barely the size of a pub condom machine yet, when you think about it, it has a similar influence. Music has always been a great social cement and the more of it the more cementing that will be done! Women have always loved dancing more than men; if only I were John Travolta.

As we leave the Stoke Arms, Morgan claps and waves goodbye to all of the regulars. Some of them even reply 'goodbye'. A muted response to an emphatic gesture. Now for the Timepiece.