The history of Swindon Town's Nigel Eady County Ground

I think it probably has its origins with Robbie Reynolds. Reynolds played football for Swindon with several friends but in the winter this friendship group was divided with Robbie playing cricket for Swindon and some of his friends playing with Swindon B R at Farringdon Road Park. I suspect Robbie suggested that with a really good ground, his friends could be persuaded to join him at the Swindon Cricket Club which had already been around for about 50 years.

Many local worthies including Robbie’s father, William Reynolds who was Mayor of Swindon between 1904 and 1905, got together and set up the County Ground Sports Company. It was based on the area which is now covered by the football and cricket grounds plus the athletics track. This land was purchased from Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard by way of debentures, the aim being to pay for them via the profits the Sports Company made. The scheme was an ambitious one with the aim to have cycling, athletics and even polo played on the ground. The opening event in 1883 attracted a huge crowd with the first cricket match being played there in 1884.

At this time, the football club was looking for a new home and moved down the hill from Old Town to the land owned by the Sports company. After one season playing on what is now the cricket field they moved to the present ground.

Unfortunately, while the football club prospered, none of the other sporting events materialised or at least not in a profitable fashion. Consequently, the original investors stood to lose a considerable amount but Goddard agreed not to enforce the debt and gave the land to the people of Swindon to be used for sporting purposes. On Goddard’s death in 1927 responsibility for the Covenant passed to the Goddard Estate.

The area on which the County Ground stands was leased by the Council to the Football Club and this position continued with leases being renewed at various intervals. Most notably the lease was renewed in the 80s when Swindon’s league fortunes were at a low ebb. To help counter this, a new deal was made which linked the rent to the size of crowds and the price of tickets. It looked a very good deal at the time but with the success of the Lou Macari years, it became much less so. Quite frequently the Club was in arrears with the rent. Closing down the local football club is not a great vote winner so the Council began to look at the possibility of breaking the Covenant by building similar facilities elsewhere and then cashing in on building houses on the County Ground.

With the Council looking to realise some value from the County Ground by selling it, there were some fears that they might look for ways of breaking the Covenant by building a similar facility elsewhere. The Supporters Trust managed to get the County Ground declared a Community Asset, which meant they had first right of refusal if it was put up for sale. The Nigel Eady Trustees approached the Council but found the Council unwilling to sell for what was considered a realistic price.

As time moved on and as Swindon Borough Council found their debts rising they became more amenable. An offer of £1 million by the Trust was deemed to be inadequate with the Council wanting roughly  £2.5 million with strings attached. This led to an idea being floated that the Trust and the Club itself would purchase the ground in partnership.

A deal was eventually struck by which a joint venture company 50 per cent owned by the Club and 50 per cent by the Supporters Trust would be given a 250-year lease with the proviso that around a million pounds would be spent on ground improvements and, if the ground was not redeveloped within a set timescale, the deal would be nullified.

It was what everyone wanted but a problem remained in that the Trust did not have the money to fund its side of the deal. An approach was made to the Nigel Eady Trustees. A great debt of gratitude is owed to these gentlemen not only by Nigel Eady, for fulfilling his dying wish, but to the Supporters of Swindon Town.

Eady was a man who was cash-poor but asset-rich. Patience and some skilful long-term planning saw the original value of the bequest grow. Some years before they had been approached to allow money from the fund to be used to fund the purchase of a training ground. The Trustees were sympathetic to the idea until they learnt that the training ground would not be in the club’s name but that of Mr Lee Power.

When approached by the Supporters Trust they were asked if they would loan money from the Trust to allow them to pay their share to the Council. They did spend some of the money from the Trust on the Foundation Park which houses many sporting and other activities benefitting football fans and the Swindon Community. Despite this, there was still a substantial amount of Eady’s fund left. The remaining obstacle was that the terms of Mr Eady’s Will was that the money should be given not loaned, which the trustees chose to do.

The renaming of the Club’s ground as the Nigel Eady County Ground could not be a more fitting tribute to a man who, along with Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard has enabled Swindon Town to share ownership of its its own ground along with a Supporters Group. There can be no doubt that the original gift of Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard and the purchase of it made possible by Nigel Eady has benefitted and will benefit the whole of the Swindon community for many years to come.