THIS WEEK IN 1989:

AMID much controversy, a new site has been earmarked for Worcester City’s lowly placed football club after 50 mainly moneyspinning years at St George’s Lane. The Raven Field off the A38 at Claines is the likeliest location for the trouble-hit city FC’s new stadium if recently revealed plans for the sell-off of the St George’s Lane pitch go ahead. The club, hit by dwindling attendances and internal squabbles, is still fighting off long standing debts following years in football’s doldrums. The bombshell leaked out a few days ago that property developers Beazer Homes has approached the club with an offer to buy the four-acre St George’s Lane ground for housing development with a projected £2 million price tag. The ground was bought by City FC shareholders in the 1920s.

THIS WEEK IN 1979:

HALLOW Park near Worcester is to close during the summer after 30 years as a Barnardo children’s home.

The buildings will be put on the market and most of the remaining 11 children plus specialist staff will move to the Barnardo’s home at Moseley, Birmingham.

Hallow Park has been run down gradually over several years from its peak when it accommodated 36 children.

Hallow Park consists of an imposing and substantial main building and three purpose-built houses erected in the early 1960s.

● From now on, visitors to the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings at Stoke Heath, near Bromsgrove, will have the chance to see a cock fighting pit. The “cockpit” is the latest addition to the museum, introduced at a cost of £20,000. The pyramidlike building known as the Cockpit Theatre originally stood behind the Crown Hotel in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, but has been carefully reconstructed at Avoncroft. The Victoria and Albert Museum and other charitable trusts have contributed towards the cost.

THIS WEEK IN 1969:

COMEDIAN Ken Dodd was mobbed by a huge crowd when he opened the Market Hall of the new Blackfriars Shopping Centre in Worcester on Saturday. His young fans swarmed all over the surrounding buildings off Angel Place and one, Elizabeth Kittson, aged 12, of Randwick Drive, Warndon, fell through a skylight and sustained cuts and bruises. So great was the crush around Ken Dodd that he was unable to deliver his prepared speech.

He arrived near the platform sweating and dishevelled but continued to autograph personal photographs and distribute his tickling sticks. The first floor market hall, which has space for more than 70 stalls, is now open for business though much of the Blackfriars redevelopment awaits completion. The overall scheme will bring 45 shops, a multi-storey car park and 12 flats.

THIS WEEK IN 1959:

From Berrow’s Worcester Journal’s Crowquill jottings column: “So the fate of the Theatre Royal, Worcester is sealed at last. It is not, as was rumoured, to be turned into a department store, nor is it to be re-opened as a theatre. It is to be demolished and modern car showrooms are to be built on the site. Everyone who loves the stage will view the passing of this theatre with regret. It is not that it was an ideal theatre. It had many faults in construction and accommodation. But its destruction marks another phase in the live theatre’s losing battle against the cinema and television. It is a sad story for anyone who appreciates the unique pleasures to be found in a theatre – the excitement, the theatre smells of greasepaint, perfume and costumes, and the thrill of close association with great actors and actresses. “Canned” versions can never provide this.”