United62 wrote: ↑07 Mar 2017, 15:20
Ditto, but swap Wingate & Finchley for Tonbridge Angels (avg. attendance 421)... that would be so weird watching a team I've been watching since 1990 (and a current ST holder to boot) against the Gulls.... half'n'half scarf anyone?
two stands under one roof: Wingate & Finchley & Finchley RFC exist back to back
I'll be at Wingate tonight ~ the last midweek game I went to there attracted just 85 people & a stray rugby ball landed on the pitch!
Situated in Summers Lane, N12 the football grandstand was built 1930. It is a fine example of Art Deco architecture. Within a year the grandstand became virtually unique as it was converted into a two-sided structure to provide spectator accommodation for the rugby club in the adjoining ground.
Originally the old Finchley Football Club occupied what is now known as the Maurice Rebak Stadium and when they were faced with closure they merged with prominent North London club, Wingate FC who had lost their ground to M1 construction and then moved to London E10 to merge with Leyton FC as Leyton-Wingate but moved again to return to Finchley when the opportunity afforded itself.
Wingate & Finchley are often perceived as a 'Jewish club', due to Finchley's sizeable Jewish community and a number of other factors, including sporting the Star of David on the club's badge, having a number of Jewish individuals on the committee of the club and being able to apply for special dispensation to move their games should they fall on Yom Kippur. One of Wingate & Finchley's predecessor clubs, Wingate, was established in order to aim to combat anti-semitism. The original Wingate club was named after Capt Orde Wingate, who had been involved in training the Haganah, the precursor to the Israeli Defence Forces but was not himself Jewish but a British Army officer who achieved cult status amongst the youth of London's Jewish community in the years immediately after WW2.
'The Rebak' has one of the best playing surfaces of any non league club having a staggering £400,000 invested in it and the surrounding little ground when Wingate moved in including pop-up sprinklers that are the envy of many a fully professional club and the club itself exist on those tiny gates through having the second lowest wage bill in the Ryman Premier (c£1,200pw) yet operate a massive pyramid of teams below the first team including their own development club ~ Hadley Wood & Wingate ~ in the Spartan South Midlands Lge Div 1 and it's own fully floodlit and 3G training ground and pavilion on the site of the playing field immediately behind Barnet's old Underhill Ground........something that leaves Torquay United way behind!
When I was there on Saturday, Walter Figuera's mum was hovering menacingly trying to figure out how to 'handbag' the Canvey Island player who had provoked her son into getting a red card after a fracas. Try as she might; there was no way round all that security fencing; football in the leafy 'burbs isn't as gentlemanly as you might imagine! 
Exit of the gladiators: even Walter's mum can't get through that lot!
Agree totally
