Meet the local campaigners: Josephine and AFC Lewisham

Josephine’s story helps explain why sports clubs are essential to saving London’s precious green spaces.

At CPRE London, we’re working with Josephine and the Friends of Quaggy Playing Fields who are intent on preserving their local sports pitches and developing them as an area of regional sporting significance. In recent years, they have seen a number of the fields bought by developers and fenced off, so they are now taking action and we are supporting them through our Ten New Parks for London campaign. Through that campaign, we aim to raise the profile of the large amount of protected land in London which is being bought up, fenced off and deliberately neglected by developers with a view to trying to build on it sometime in the future, when they hope to argue no-one uses it and the local community has no interest in it.

Josephine is founder and Club Secretary of AFC Lewisham who recently leased the Bowring Sports Ground in Greenwich as a home for the club – “a dilapidated site with overgrown football fields full of dumped objects” which had not been used for eight years. Though the owners leased the site to AFC Lewisham, they are not interested in its long-term use for sports and are now trying to sell it to developers.

But it is the club’s work, to bring the site back into use, which ultimately will be what saves it from being lost to development.

Tell us how you came to found AFC Lewisham?

When my 13-year-old son wanted to join a football club, we could only find clubs outside the borough which would have meant travelling across London after school in the dark. So I said to my son “don’t worry I’ll set up a club!” He said “Are you sure?” Then I thought to myself “I can’t do this” but I sat at my computer, looked at what needed to be done and thought.. “I’m going to give this a go.”

How has the club grown since you set it up?

In March 2012, we held a meeting. 15 parents had said they were interested; only three turned up. Undeterred by this, and a lacklustre response we received from the wider football community as a woman with an accent on a mission, we made my older son the head coach, myself the club secretary and my husband the welfare officer and chairman. We bought footballs, collected some of the boys from their houses and started practising at the local park on Saturday mornings.

Surviving on minimal subs, we were able to start hiring a space, affiliated ourselves to the London FA and grew the club to what is now 19 strong teams and 200 juniors. Several of the kids who started as children now volunteer for the club as a coach or referee. We have a positive impact in our community, welcoming newcomers to the area and to the club. Relationships are forged on the touchline between various nationalities who might not otherwise mix.

Tell us a bit about the struggles you’ve had with finding suitable playing fields

It’s very difficult to find suitable pitches due to lack of local facilities available. We are a Lewisham club but have had to move to the Royal Borough of Greenwich. We felt fortunate to secure this site even though we have problems with waterlogged pitches which we are still trying to resolve.

The site had not been used for 8 years and was overgrown with rubbish everywhere. We modernised it so it now provides a home ground and some stability. But we’ve also created an important community space used by a secondary school, local youth and senior grassroots football clubs and the wider community.

Financially, we survive mainly through membership subscriptions but we also hire out pitches and our main hall for social events, after-school dance classes and table tennis.

And what about he struggles you’re having with now?

We continue to struggle with drainage and we have just had a planning application for an artificial 3G pitch turned down which is really disappointing. Apparently, the reason was light and noise. On top of this, the owner has put the site on the market as a site for construction of 63 residential properties. The clubhouse is at risk and would be likely be demolished.

What would you like to happen now?

We want the borough to make a clear statement that the site is needed for sports, is not suitable for housing and that they are very unlikely to issue planning permission for the site as it is protected Metropolitan Open Land (which can only be developed in exceptional circumstances. We would also like them to support our efforts to improve and modernise the facilities so we can make sure it continues serving the local sports community long into the future.