Mary stands her ground over St George's Lane

The trouble is that the St George's Lane ground has been an integral part of her family history for almost a century and holds so many fond memories and evokes such nostalgia for her.

Her great-uncle and then her grandmother owned the ground for almost half-a-century, leasing it to the City Football Club, and her father was a popular and widely-respected chairman of Worcester City FC for about 20 years.

A central figure in the family story was Mrs Saunders' grandmother, Sarah Ann Bowcott who died in the early 1940s, just months short of her 100th birthday. Her mother had run a wet fish shop in The Shambles many years earlier, and Sarah Ann married a railway driver, John Bowcott. They had eight children, but she long outlived her husband.

However, the lengthy St George's Lane chapter in the family history began with Sarah Ann's brother, Arthur Jones who, towards the end of the 1800s, bought a large area of meadow land alongside St George's Lane and had four houses built on the road frontage of it.

These still survive today as Numbers 99, 101, 103 and 105 and stand between the entrance frontage of the city football ground and the Cavalier Tavern, formerly the St George's Tavern.

It was in the very early years of the 20th Century that Arthur Jones gave a 99-year lease of what he called The Meadow at St George's Lane to the City FC as its "new" football ground.

Arthur was clearly a wealthy man and a bachelor, but Mrs Saunders and other descendants are not sure what had been his trade or profession and how he had made his money. From middle age, he had simply been "a gentleman of leisure and a keen race-goer".

The four houses he had built alongside The Meadow football ground were all occupied by his relatives, notably his sister Sarah Ann Bowcott at Number 105 St George's Lane, which was next to the St George's Tavern. Arthur lived with her after her husband's death, and she apparently "doted on him".

One of Sarah Ann's daughters, Margaret (Maggie) Bowcott, a florist for a time, married Yorkshire-born Tommy Smith and lived next door at 103 St George's Lane. The couple were to have three children - Margaret, Colin and Mary (now Mrs Saunders).

Tom Smith spent most of his working life as a foreman at the giant Worcester engineering firm of Heenan & Froude but will perhaps be best remembered as chairman of Worcester City FC for about 20 years, between the 1940s and the early 1960s.

Against this family background, I now bring in some of Mrs Saunders' cherished memories of her childhood and youth of the late 1920s and the 1930s.

"We always knew the football ground as The Meadow, and the four adjoining houses where we and other relatives lived all had access to it from the back gardens. My brother and sister and I looked on it very much as our playground, and we loved to go searching under the stands hoping to find some treasures, though, alas, the only prize we ever got for getting so dirty was the odd pencil. Ironically, despite the untold hours we spent on it, we never played football on The Meadow ourselves as kids!

"Our great-uncle Arthur went on to the ground every day he lived with our grandmother, and my sister Margaret and I would be dispatched to fetch him home from his position in a far stand. It was often quite an ordeal because we were only children and he was a big man who by then was fairly elderly and could only get about on a stick with difficulty.

"He would regularly give us a sugar mouse each as a present for helping him across the ground, and one of my proud possessions today is one of those sugar mice!"

Mrs Saunders also has vivid memories of a lot of spectators getting a free look at the City in action.

"They would peer in through holes in the corrugated fence along the canal side of the ground or stand on their bikes to look over the top.

"Occasionally, the footballs - leather in those days - would come over into our gardens during a game but we would never hold on to them, throwing them back immediately. And when a football occasionally splashed into the canal, we would use a long cane to get it out.

"I well remember two former groundsmen - Walter Williams and a Mr Groves who was affectionately know as Spider - and also a past club secretary, Captain Felix. The ground was also used for the Worcester schools' sports finals, and a well-known figure at matches was the Evening News chief photographer, the late William (Rich) Richardson."

However, Mrs Saunders most cherished memories of St George's Lane all feature her "dear father".

It was through his personal efforts that the City FC was able to purchase the St George's Lane Ground in around 1950.

After Arthur Jones's death in the 1930s, the ownership of the ground passed to his sister, Sarah Ann Bowcott but she was then at an advanced age and did not really want the responsibility. She therefore agreed to end the club's remaining long period of the 99-year lease and to sell the ground in order that the proceeds could be divided among her eight children.

From the bedroom windows of the Smith family home at 103 St George's Lane, it was possible to see the canal end goal area of the ground, but obviously Tommy Smith preferred to take up his seat in the directors' box as club chairman - that is, except on one very notable occasion.

It was the memorable day in January, 1959, when Worcester City played mighty Liverpool in the third round of the FA Cup and brought off a famous giant-killing act, beating the northern side 2-1 before a record crowd of more than 15,000 at St George's Lane.

"My father got so wound up as he walked round the ground before the start that the tension got to him and he went home, occasionally glancing at the game from a bedroom window.

"He stayed there until near the end when the went back to the ground for the celebrations and to be whisked off to go on television to express the club's joy at the spectacular victory."

Tommy Smith was often at the Lancaster Gate HQ of the Football Association for meetings with the likes of Sir Stanley Rous and went every year to the FA Cup Final at Wembley, "always reduced to tears" at the community hymn singing of Abide with Me.

Tommy Smith also wrote Jottings columns on local football clubs for the Evening News' Green 'Un and for other Midland sports papers.

"I would write some of them out for dad," recalls Mrs Saunders. "He not only took a close and positive interest in the City but also in local factory and village football teams such as Heenan & Froude, Archdales, Tibberton, Shelsley and Badsey. He was much involved too in local cup competitions such as the Worcester Infirmary and Orphanage Cup and the Tom Kerrod Cup."

Mrs Saunders has watched as the St George's Lane Ground has been altered "over and over again" down the years, and recalls when sheep regularly grazed on it during the war years.

She also remembers the years when the Worcester Salvation Army Band always played before the start of games at St George's Lane.

Like her father, she worked at Heenan & Froude for some years in the company's accounts department, and was also with Armstrongs, the outfitters, for a time. She married Stan Saunders, who was in the accounts department of Metal Box at Worcester, and they began their married life with a few years living in St George's Lane, before moving to a newly-built house in Northwick Road, where she continues to live today.

Stan Saunders was always a keen City supporter as was Mrs Saunders' brother, Colin Smith, another Metal Box employee of many years. Alas, Stan, Colin and Mrs Saunders' sister Margaret have all died.

In fact, Mrs Saunders is among the few surviving grandchildren of the "grand old lady," Sarah Ann Bowcott, whose eight children became linked by marriage with other well-known families of The Shambles such as the Pratleys and the Andrews. Sarah Ann's son Fred Bowcott was a butcher in the Shambles Market for many years, while another son Fred was a Worcester builder.

Other remaining grandchildren of Sarah Ann Saunders include Mrs Jane Sedgley (maiden name, Pratley), Len Carless, a popular figure on the Worcester Guildhall staff, his brother Edward Carless who worked for builders Joseph Wood and Co for many years, and Miss Connie Bowcott who has lived in one of the former family homes alongside the St George's Lane Ground for the past 55 years. She is the daughter of builder Fred Bowcott.

Mrs Saunders says it will be "a very sad day for me and my cousins if and when the City Football Club goes from St George's Lane and it is developed. The ground is so much part of our memories and of our family history".