New football stadium would be game-changer says Sporting Hackney FC

Going for goal: triumphant members of Sporting Hackney’s first team with last season’s MCFL Cup. Photograph: Patrick Green

Hackney’s most successful football club is calling on the council to kickstart its goal of building a stadium so its team can progress to the next league.

Amateur club Sporting Hackney has the highest-playing team in the borough, and currently uses the pitch on Hackney Marshes for its games in the premier division of the Middlesex County Football League (MCFL).

Its first team has won the league cup the last two years. But without a stadium, the team has been unable to win promotion to a higher league.

“Because there were no facilities of any higher level than Hackney Marshes, we weren’t able to go for a promotion,” the club’s chairman, Matthew Brown, told the Hackney Citizen.

“It’s been difficult to hang onto players and managers. This year we had to rebuild the team and attract new players. It’s been tough, we’ve been lower down the division this year.”

Sense of identity

The club needs the council to help identify a site suitable for a stadium to be built. Hackney Marshes is unsuitable because it is registered ‘common land,’ which gives the public the ‘right to roam’ on it.

“We are not asking the council for funding, we’re just asking it to consider working with us to look into identifying a site where it might be possible to build a stadium,” said Brown.

He hopes grants from sport federations and deals with private developers might help fund the construction.

Hackney is the only borough in the area not to have a proper stadium: Tower Hamlets has Mile End Stadium, Waltham Forest is home to Wadham Lodge Sports Ground, and Haringay uses Coles Park Stadium.

Without a stadium it is much harder to attract young players to the youth teams, Brown said. “We need the first team to play at a high level to attract those young people.

“It would be an important part of the commitment to developing the sporting legacy from the Olympics.

“It would also become important base for Hackney as a sporting community and give a sense of identity for the borough for hackney as a whole.”

Grassroots football

Sporting Hackney was started in 1986 with a grant from the council as a project for unemployed residents.

In its 30 years the club has moved up through the ranks of grassroots football.

“There has always been a strong sense of community about the club. It brings together people who were born in Hackney and those who have moved here,” says Brown.

“Some have been involved in the club for an awfully long time and developed a special relationship with it – partly because we are owned and run by ourselves.

“But without a stadium Hackney players are looking to other boroughs so they can progress to a higher level.”

Michael Desmond, Hackney Downs Councillor, will put forward a deputation to the full council on 27 January, asking for help finding a suitable site for the stadium.

Hackney Council was approached for comment and had not responded at time of publication.