Iron Acton

Club President Baz Taylor left Rangeworthy to join Acton 52 years ago, later marrying Gales daughter Valerie and the couples three sons all first kicked a ball for the club at the age of 15. Although no longer playing Lyndon and Asa Taylor remain pivotal cogs in the Acton wheel with their involement now as Committee members and First Team - Team assistants. Before his untimely death fellow brother Adam was the Manager of the First Team and is dearly missed by all at the club. Newspaper cuttings suggest that football was played in Acton even earlier that 1895, but it was agreed to celebrate the centenary in 1985, when a commemorative booklet was produced to mark the event. Acton's first home games were staged in a field at nearby Latteridge before they transferred to a plot behind the White Hart. Players changed at the Old Village Hall and then carried the posts, nets and flags to the pitch. One the game was over, both team would soak in the hot tubs prepared by Mabel Pontin before enjoying a pint in the local. Acton then enjoyed more than 80 seasons on an excellent pitch behind the Rose & Crown which closed down a few years ago and the club has since faced a nomadic existence. Acton's first team and reserves would then start using Sunnyside playing fields in Yate. Landlady Rosie Allen made outhouses at the Rose and Crown available for changing with tin baths again provided before the club installed their own facilities thanks to volunteers John Eaves, John House and Ray Kendall helped re-erect a wooden billet from an RAF base. Ambitious Acton became the first local club at grassroots level to install floodlights in 1959 thanks mainly to electrician Bert Shepherd, giving players a new experience in the game. Little is known of the clubs record in the Bristol & District league up to the Second World War when an Iron Acton & District league was formed until the end of the hostilities, but Acton continued playing elsewhere with John Weaver recieving an award on behalf of the club which became the Bristol & Suburban Wartime Junior champions in 1941/42. In 1985 the corks were popping with Bob Ford guiding Acton to a 3-2 victory over Henbury OB in the final of the Bristol Premier Combination Cup. When the Bristol Sunday league was launched in 1966 former Bristol Rovers favourite Alfie Biggs was a great attraction at the ground where he and other ex professionals ended their careers at Acton. Other names included Tony Ford, whose brother Bob was Manager and Chairman for many years, Stuart Taylor, John Cook, Ron Benjamin, Graham Greenaway, Frank Sage and Bob Shepherd. Les Gale was succeeded as secretary by Baz Taylor who would go on to serve 23 years himself.