Ide Hill are delighted to announce that they have once more agreed a ground share with Sevenoaks Town and will play their home games at the Isthmian League side’s Bourne Stadium for the 2020-21 Season.
Having struck up a fruitful partnership with Sevenoaks Town last season, which saw the Kent County team play a number of fixtures after Christmas down at the Greatness Park ground, behind the scenes work and discussions have resulted in the burgeoning connection continuing, with all at Ide Hill ecstatic to be able to use the excellent facilities for the forthcoming season.
Historically, the home of Ide Hill FC is up on the picturesque Ide Hill Recreation Ground in the village itself, where the first team played when they were part of the Sevenoaks and District League a number of years ago. They also played the first half of last season there, after their home, through recent years at Wrotham School, underwent development of its changing facilities, rendering it unusable at Step 7 standard.
Ultimately, as the club has grown in stature and the first team have secured a number of promotions over the years, the recent link with Sevenoaks Town has proven timely and hugely beneficial in helping the club to continue to grow, whilst giving everyone connected with the club a sense of pride at being able to host visiting teams at the impressive non-league ground. Ide Hill have used this period of ambition and development to begin producing their first ever match day programmes and have looked to secure the long-term future of the club with the recruitment of a raft of high quality young players who will hopefully continue to keep the club moving in the right direction in years to come.
Ide Hill Club Secretary Keith McGinn, who has been instrumental in discussions and building strong connections with Sevenoaks Town and their Chairman Paul Lansdale, was extremely pleased to strike the deal for use of The Bourne Stadium. He said: “I’m very grateful that our club is again able to use the excellent facilities at the Bourne Stadium. We hope we will be able to welcome supporters once the government and FA deem it safe to do so. I would like to thank Paul Lansdale and his committee for their help during this time whilst we, as a club, continue our search for a suitable home venue for Ide Hill FC”.
And First Team manager Paul McDonagh is also happy to have use of the facilities again, after a season where he guided Ide Hill to 4th place in their first season in the Kent County Premier before the league was suspended in the Spring: “The Bourne Stadium is such a great facility to be able to use with a really good chairman in Paul Lansdale who keeps the ground in immaculate condition. It’s definitely one of the best grounds that any team will have access to in the division and maybe even a division or two above; we are honoured again to be able to call it our home pitch this season. The facilities will help to grow the reputation of the club which in turn could help us to attract better players moving forward which in turn will help the club to develop.
“A huge thanks to everyone at Sevenoaks Town for agreeing to the groundshare, we at Ide Hill will try to do the facilities proud with some good football, fair play and hopefully another strong showing in the league for a local side looking to grow.” The Kent County season begins on the 5th September.
