After a hot July evening Assembly League race around Sutcliffe Park this week, hosted by Cambridge Harriers, a drink was definitely in order and we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy the hospitality of the Old Roan Club just across the road from the park on Kidbrooke Park Road SE3. The playing fields here are owned by the John Roan foundation linked to the John Roan secondary school in Greenwich - rare and very welcome to see a state-funded school having access to such good facilities in an area where private schools seem to have more than their fair share of such spaces. It is home to the Old Roan Cricket Club which dates back to 1930 and Old Roan Football Club founded in 1907.
I love places like this and have come to really appreciate these oases which have been kept going for many decades, often by volunteers. In London in particular you have to marvel how any green space has been preserved against developers.
Old Roan has all the classic ingredients - a pavilion with very reasonably priced beer, a trophy cabinet, and playing fields complete with a running track painted on the grass, and of course a cat that thinks it owns the place. It was a lovely place to watch the sun go down after running three laps round the park, my first time back out in a Kent AC vest for a while.
