Page 8 - Almondsbury FC v Radstock Town 260422

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Visitors to the Field today.....
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Bristol Telephones FC
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Formation: Programme notes from a game in 1937 suggest that football was
being played in Radstock as early as 1835 but there is no solid evidence to back
that up. However, there are newspaper match reports from 1883 so, it can be safely
as sumed that the club was actually formed in the early 1880’s. Radstock Wanderers
was the clubs name from 1889 until they changed to Radstock Town after affiliating
to the Somerset FA in 1895.
Ground: In the early days the club played on a ground off of the Old Bath Road
situated where a Primary School stood until recently. It was officially called
Roundhill but was known locally as ‘Hilltop’. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s they
also played at South Hill, which is where a Bath College campus is now but at the
time was a manor house and grounds owned by Earl Walder- grave.
The lack of a true home became critical at the end of the First World War and the
club was unable to re form until 1920 when they were able to move to their current
home at Southfield. The first official fixture played at Southfield was on Septem ber
10th 1920 when Warminster Town were the visitors in an FA Cup tie. The game,
which Radstock won 1-0, was watched by a crowd of 700, which apparently greatly
pleased the club committee!
As a business: Financial issues saw the club take a couple of breaks from
competitive first team football,
1900-01 to 1902-03 and again at the end of the 1909-10 campaign.
The 1914-18 war and the lack of a pitch meant that Radstock Town didn’t appear
again as senior club until the 1920-21 season.
In 1930 club supporters joined to gether to create a supporters social club which
remains in existence to this day.
On the pitch: The club’s first silver ware came when they won the in augural
Somerset Senior Cup at the end of the 1895/96 season beating Wells City 4-0 in a
replay at Midsomer Norton following a 1-1 draw. The club has won the cup twelve
times subsequently and fin shed runners up on a further twelve occasions! Success
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in league competitions has been harder to come but club has won the Somerset
Senior League six times and the Wiltshire League on four occasions. Despite many
sea sons in the Western League the best position achieved was way back in the
1920/21 season when the reformed side finished runners up. The 1960’s & 70’s
were the most successful in the clubs long history when they won a remarka ble 12
leagues and cups!
Today: The club had been on the brink of promotion for the last two seasons but
the pandemic saw them miss out by the smallest of margins based on the FA’s
points per game system.
Two ex-players, Ryan Child & Tom Pawley, manage the 1stX1 and they are
confident the squad is ca pable of doing well and bringing the good times back to
Southfield.