In November of last year, a non-league football club made its first appearance at its new home ground. This in itself is nothing truly remarkable. After all, football clubs relocating has been a common enough sight over the last quarter of a century or so. For this particular club, though, the move was a special one, bringing, as it did, to an end twelve years of asset-stripping, internecine arguing and a battle to keep senior football alive in a borough on the periphery of London that had become synonymous with one of the best known names in non-league football. In November 2011, senior football returned to Enfield for the first time since 1999, but the name of the club bringing it back wasn’t quite that which more casual observers might have expected. Enfield FC was originally formed in 1893 as Enfield Spartans, before truncating it’s blame seven years later. The club moved into a new stadium – almost enigmatically called The Stadium, but more commonly known by the main road near which it stood, Southbury Road – in 1936. Developments over the years turned it into an archetypal small English ground, covered at both ends, with a large cover on one side and a seated stand in which was located the changing rooms, bar and offices. It was in the 1960s that the club began to make its name,...
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