Horsham Forum - The Horsham and Southwater Commmunity Forum

These marauding hun are here to pillage our environment, leaving piles of litter everywhere.

These drunken yobs will be fighting in the streets everynight, fans urinating in my garden, more cars than on the M25 in the rush hour, parking restrictions for residents, the list goes on and on.

That's before all the Rock Festivals start, with their 20 lorry loads of roadies and equipment.

Wow......Now let's all calm down for a minute and take a reality check.

This is Horsham not Wembley or Old Trafford.

I have a work colleague who has lived in Queensway for the nearly 40 years. His house backs on to the current ground.  They play every other Saturday afternoon and every other Tuesday evening. During the few hours a week when games are played he say's that he hardly notices any noise, especially for the evening games, save for the occasional cheer when they score. Similar levels of noise come from the adjacent YMCA ground.

The rest of the time you could hear a pin drop....  if it wasn't for all the birds singing. The football club have been the perfect neighbours and he will be sad to see them leave.... and is dreading the 80 or so houses which are to be built in it's place.

He has never heard bad language, never seen or heard of anyone fighting and has certainly never caught anyone going to toilet in his garden (although he does have some very fine roses).

This is leafy Horsham, West Sussex. 

The people that attend these matches and run the club are also no doubt from our town, attending the same schools, shops and churches as everyone else. Ok there are travelling supporters from other clubs, who may not be fully aware of our local custom of bladder retention when passing someone's garden, but hey ho, that can equally happen from someone attending one of the Rock Tribute bands that regularly play at the Holbrook club on Friday or Saturday nights or a reveller from a party or other function.

 If you look on the Horsham club website it gives the crowd figures.  They seem to have between 300 or 700 on a Saturday, with mid week attendances between 100 - 200. Nothing like the 4000 claimed.  Yes they did have over 3000 at the Swansea Sky game and yes I did sit in the Holbrook Club cheering them on. But I wasn't the only one and this is the only time I have ever heard mention of Horsham on the TV, so we can count this crowd as an exception to the rule rather than the norm. Certainly on par with the Bonfire night firework displays at the Holbrook Club. 

Think of how many people currently attend the football tournaments and model train shows at the Holbrook club and the resulting parking nightmares that go with it.  The plans show an additional 100 or so parking spaces are planned. 
That has to be a good thing doesn't it?
Why didn't the Holbrook club think of doing that years ago?

I presume that the image on the cover of the leaflet is meant to be the Horsham mascot?  My daughter met Howard the Hornet in the park last month, when he was running the Sport Relief race for charity. He bears no resemblance to the mean aggressive looking wasp on the cover of the leaflet and seems quite a pleasant chap and is great with the kids. He is always in the county times doing something or other for charity or to promote the club.
 

Looking at the plans, I see it more as an extension of the Holbrook facilities. No worse than if the Holbrook Club were to develop the existing facilities for their own use, by putting in floodlighting and a few seats for spectators.   With current modern floodlight technology, the lights point downwards, are non intrusive and certainly do not resemble WW2 searchlights looking for the Luftwaffe.
 
I really believe that we will not even notice that the football club are there and would hope that they plan to be there for 100 years or so, meaning there is zero chance of 500 houses ever being built at the end of my garden in ten years time. 
 

I for one support this plan

Charlie