FOOTBALL
History
The club was formed in 1903. After the first world war, they played in the Bedford and District League and then moved to the North Bucks & District Football League in 1930. They joined Division 2b of the South Midlands League in 1949 and won it at the first attempt, winning promotion to Division One. They were promoted to the Premier division in the 1952-53 seasons when they finished as runners-up. The club remained in the Premier division until the 1955-56 season when they were relegated to Division One and, three seasons later, were relegated again to the Bedford and District League.
The club returned to the South Midlands League, in the 1976-77 season, starting in Division one. The club remained in Division one until the end of the 1995-96 season, except for three seasons from 1985-86 when they were in the Premier division. The club left the South Midlands League again in 1996. In 2001, the club joined the Spartan South Midlands Football League in Division Two, and four seasons later they were promoted to the Premier Division.
In 2009-10, they played in the FA Cup for the first-ever time, losing to Crawley Green 3–1 in the extra preliminary qualifying round.
Cranfield United resigned from the Spartan South Midlands League at the end of the 2012-13 season and took their reserve team’s place in Division Two of the Bedfordshire County League. At the end of the 2014-2015 season, Cranfield United’s first team won the Bedfordshire County Football League Division One as Champions and were promoted to the Premiership Division for the 2015-2016 Season. The Reserve side also won the Bedfordshire League Division Three as Champions during the same season.
60 PC August/September 2020
Wes talks me through his maintenance regime throughout the season. “I cut the pitch with the Ransomes 2130 triple mower at a height of around 25-35mm. I do this once or twice a week along with pitch divoting. I use my homemade drag brush every other day or when required to help stand up the grass. I carry out surface aeration once a month if conditions allow, using the multi-slitter I have recently purchased and my spiker. I will bring in a contractor to verti-drain the pitch as deep as they can go twice a year.” The renovation was minimal due to the budget available last year, so they levelled off the goalmouths and linesman runs and overseeded. This season, Wes was hoping to carry out a more substantial renovation but, with the current situation with the pandemic, everyone is uncertain when non-league
football will be able to resume. The pandemic will not stop Wes trying out and developing his new project. “I’m building my own seed protector/soaker for goal renovations which I have designed. It will hopefully protect the seeds from the birds, in particular the pigeons which live in the conifers. We only have a single outside tap for irrigation, so we are limited on water pressure, so I have designed it with this in mind. I have used leftover materials I had from work.”
“It’s all part of the fun of being a volunteer groundsman for me, trying to overcome those little problems where you don’t have the money to do anything. You have to diversify or find another way to get the best out of what you have got available to you. Then, when you start to see the fruits of it, you turn back and go, it was hard work, but it works and does the job.”
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