Work on Terraces at Twerton Park

I have advised Shane that I will be available for wire brush/repainting work.
Waiting to hear when?
Look forward to seeing anyone else who comes!

Because of a recent hospital diagnosis - I shall have to defer for now.

Can’t make it next week Maurice but will volunteer for a phase2 if there is one.

I’ll probably write a bit for the Chron about the ground in general.

Being super lazy here - any idea when the pop size was reduced to about half the size it once was? I would guess the mid 70s.

No, it was in the 60s, Junior. The good book is a bit ambiguous on this, but it states that the Club sold the land at the top of the Pop Side during the 67/68 season. I’m assuming that the terrace was reduced the following close season which also saw the opening of the Penguin Club and the refurbishment of the grandstand.

Thanks!

comrade powell wrote:No, it was in the 60s, Junior. The good book is a bit ambiguous on this, but it states that the Club sold the land at the top of the Pop Side during the 67/68 season. I’m assuming that the terrace was reduced the following close season which also saw the opening of the Penguin Club and the refurbishment of the grandstand.

I had a quick look through my programmes for 67/8 and 68/9 to see if they shed any more light on this - it is right at the beginning of when I started watching City in September 67. I don't remember how far back the Popular Side went in those days, but I seem to recall that it wasn't covered for the whole length in those days. 

I found the programme for the opening game of 68/9 v Ramsgate and although it doesn't help with the Popular Side question the editorial includes the following:
"Welcome back to Twerton Park. What a tremendous change to the ground from the end of last season. When QPR played here in the last match the builders were just moving in. Now in a few weeks time they will take their leave - and Bath City's new social centre scheme will be complete. We have waited many years for our facilities to be brought up to date and I think the directors and general manager are to be congratulated on what they have achieved. We apologise to supporters and visitors for any inconvenience suffered or caused in these opening weeks when the finishing touches are made and any snags are ironed out. It should be remembered in particular that there is no transfer from enclosure to stand nor from one end of the stand to the other."

The Penguin Club was officially opened on 27 August 1968 by the Mayor of Bath

I see that Comrade has diplomatically referred to the "Pop" side.  Did we ever get a definite answer as to whether it was popular or poplar?

Apologies, I should have said POPULAR side! I’ve spoken to some very elderly supporters who were very surprised at the suggestion it could refer to some trees which they couldn’t recall ever growing there.

comrade powell wrote:Apologies, I should have said POPULAR side! I’ve spoken to some very elderly supporters who were very surprised at the suggestion it could refer to some trees which they couldn’t recall ever growing there.

Would that be elder trees? Now that's an idea. Perhaps we could rename it!

There was a row of quite tall (slim I think) trees behind the covered area that is probably now Freeview Road. There was also a gents toilet facility (in the sense there was a corrugated tin construction where you could relieved oneself).- Probably not connected to any mains service.

At the time everyone I knew called it the Poplar side but with an element of West Country accent that may have been my interpretation of what was being said.

Peter Newman wrote:There was also a gents toilet facility (in the sense there was a corrugated tin construction where you could relieved oneself).- Probably not connected to any mains service.

Peter, your description of the Popular Side Gentleman's Water Closet has left me in stitches. I had almost forgotten that it ever existed.

It was still there in the mid 70's when I first started going down Twerton as a kid, and did indeed consist of a corrugated iron shack in which a half culvert pipe embedded in the concrete floor could be found. I can definitely concur it wasn't exactly one of the best sanitary facility I've ever had to make use of, and I think even in the 1970s the state of the place would have made the earliest of Victorian plumbers blush