Giuseppe Sole is Woking FC’s local hero

Woking celebrated promotion back to the Blue Square Premier on Saturday after three years in the lower South division.  Amid scenes of triumph – and relief – at Kingfield, they avoided the angst of  the play-offs this time by taking the title and going up automatically, a great credit to the work of manager Garry Hill and coach Steve Thompson.  All the players also deserve praise – and one in particular. Giuseppe Sole, always a Woking favourite who like the prodigal son had come back home, has notched an incredible club record of scoring in the last 10 consecutive league games, including the penalty – at the second attempt – at Maidenhead that clinched promotion, pictured above. First signed from the Woking Academy, aged 18, in the summer of 2006, Giuseppe immediately became a favourite with the fans, particularly for his trademark free-kicks.  He was Woking’s top scorer in 2007-08 and again in 2009-10. But something went wrong with his form. In January 2009 he joined Ebbsfleet United on loan but re-signed for Woking the following summer. He then went to  Newport County in the summer of 2010 before going on loan to Dorchester Town and then Havant and Waterlooville, for whom he later signed permanently. Even after being brought back to Kingfield in the summer of 2011 by Garry Hill, he had a loan spell at Basingstoke Town in early 2012. But now this fans’ favourite  has really come home – and how! There is a wonderful letter from his mum Carmela  on the back page of the Surrey Advertiser that sums up the relationship between the player – known as ‘Gez’ to the supporters – and the fans. It says: “Just after Christmas Giuseppe was telling me how much he would love to be part of of the team to get promotion … being a reserved couple, Pino [his father] and I don’t appear to be as passionate and excited as all you proper fans are, but there is nobody more proud and happy than us right now.”

A successful Woking FC means so much to the town; chests and attendances swell. Now that Woking feel they are back where they belong, hopes are being raised once more, as they were in the 1990s, as to how far they could go. The club has been through troubled financial times in the last few years, and arguably the top non-league tier is a tougher place than when Geoff Chapple’s side went so close to promotion to the Football League.  But it’s all to play for next season – and let’s hope Gez Sole keeps cracking in the goals.

Postcript: He scored again in Woking’s last game of the season, a 3-2 victory at Chelmsford – 11 goals in 11 league games!

Picture: By permission of Woking FC photographer David Holmes 

New McLaren centre in Woking gets the go-ahead

The government has predictably given the go-ahead to McLaren’s plans for a new applied technology centre on the green belt land on the other side of the road from their existing facility, pictured above, on the edge of Woking. Woking council had referred the planning decision to the Department for Communities and Local Government and the secretary of state, Eric Pickles, decided not to “call in” the decision. It wasn’t long ago that the prime minster, David Cameron, paid a visit to McLaren’s luxury sports car plant and praised its export efforts.  So a planning refusal was never going to happen. McLaren has promised that Woking town centre will get a Formula One visitor centre as part of the deal: but those with long memories will recall that the racing car firm pledged a visitor centre when securing its original planning permission some years ago. So we can only wait and see.  Undoubtedly a McLaren visitor centre would be a feather in the cap for Woking and attract people to the town. Now – this time – it’s up to McLaren to honour its promises.

Jam sculpture to be erected in Woking

At last! News that some sort of structure is to be erected in Woking to commemorate the Jam, whose no 1 hit back in the early 80s, Town Called Malice, is all about the town that Paul Weller grew up in.  According to the revived Woking News and Mail newspaper, three alternative ideas under consideration are 1) 11 standing monoliths; 2) something called “flowing screen”, inspired by the Jam song Tales from the Riverbank; 3) three upright sculptures around a sphere.

In other words, all pretty abstract. The commissioned artist is Richard Heys, and the location will be the Barratt Homes development near Woking station. The final choice will rest with Barratt, although Woking council and Woking Lightbox are also involved. It is hoped it will be ready later this year. The location seems a bit tucked away. But let’s hope the final work will mean something to the many Jam fans out there, who might even be encouraged to make a pilgrimage to Woking to take a look at it.

Woking’s WWF bridge: council backtracks

View of Woking Lightbox from the current canal bridge

The power of protest and e-petitions has forced Woking council to retreat over its proposals for a new bridge over the Basingstoke canal linking the town centre with the Brewery Road car park and the soon-to-be-built UK HQ for the World Wildlife Fund. In  a press release last month the council said it has listened to residents’ concerns and was now promising that the bridge – which it prefers to call the Bedser bridge – would be “significantly lower than the previous proposal, meaning fewer steps and shorter, more compact ramps, while remaining Equality Act and disability compliant.”

The statement added: “Instead of a concrete and galvanised steel structure, the new design features a timber bridge that will be sympathetic to its surrounding area. The Brewery Road side has been reconfigured to improve public access to the bridge by incorporating split-level access to the WWF-UK building. Shorter, curved ramps will now mean that it has been necessary to revise the landscape scheme, which will include planting two native species trees as part of the revised ramps.”

This constitutes a major rethink, and indicates the strength of feeling which the council was forced to take into account.

Woking’s libraries: some good news

 

The tectonic plates at County Hall must be shifting a tad. Thanks to Lib Dem county councillor Diana Smith for passing on the good news that the threat to make Woking’s bigger branch libraries such as Knaphill, and West Byfleet, pictured above, volunteer-run has been lifted.  It’s a reflection of the wave of concern provoked by such proposals, which weren’t even likely to save that much money,  and which had touched even the Conservatives’ own bedrock of support. Meanwhile smaller libraries, such as New Haw, are having raise donations from tokens collected in Waitrose.

McLaren’s big new expansion in Woking

David Cameron’s visit to McLaren’s factory last week to open its luxury car plant was aimed at emphasising the importance the government places on what’s left of Britain’s manufacturing industry, with McLaren a shining example of the new, hi-tech way forward for UK firms.  It is in this climate that McLaren has argued that its plan for a new applied technology centre across the road from its existing headquarters, picture above, should be agreed, even though it too is on green belt land. McLaren’s case is persuasive.  Its architecture-award winning, environmentally screened presence on the edge of Woking is a smart, prestigious antidote to the town’s otherwise vaguely naff image.  And in these days of soaring unemployment, an enterprise that talks of 300 construction jobs, 400 direct jobs, and 200 more subsidiary ones, should be encouraged. And yet … the planned new centre is also on green belt land, albeit not particularly attractive, and it will definitely add to traffic congestion in the area, and on a road that has seen two serious water main bursts, road collapses and disruptions in the last few years. One rule for McLaren, another for the rest of us? In this case, it seems, yes. Only the landing site of the Martians on Horsell common, which is of course preserved for the nation, can stop any further green belt encroachment in this area around Woking, I guess.

Woking’s WWF bridge: a ramp too far?

Woking council has belatedly “extended” the deadline for objections to the proposed new canal bridge linking Horsell and Woking with the new WWF development at Brewery Road to the end of the month, after the outcry about its design. The objections include the height, linked to the WWF building itself which will be erected on stilts above the existing car park, but more specifically the lengths that pushchair, pram and wheelchair users will be forced to go along along the cyclists’ ramp if they choose not to use the lift. There is an online petition about this, with its closing date 21 October.  The row has rather sadly overshadowed the fact the new bridge is intended to be a tribute to Woking’s famous cricketing twins, Eric and Alec Bedser. It is also a shame that the WWF is being cast once more as a villain in this piece, with Woking council being accused of bending over backwards once more to facilitate the WWF’s prestigious arrival in the town. Surely the real reason for the increased height of the bridge has been overlooked: it is to attract larger boats along the Basingstoke canal as Woking seeks to reposition itself as a south-east centre for shipping.

Modfather at the Lightbox

It’s good to see that Woking Lightbox is finally acknowledging Paul Weller’s importance to the town with an exhibition of photographs of the Modfather by Lawrence Watson (on now, until 25 September).  It’s also cool to see the show is titled Town Called Malice, a reference to the storming Jam song about Woking that the modern-day town of soaring office blocks and flats has tried to ignore. It’s a pity of course that the exhibition does not include any pictures of Weller’s early years with the Jam, or indeed hardly any of the Style Council – but then photographer Lawrence did not meet up with Weller until 1988, when the Style Council had almost run its course.  It’s also a shame that the cheapest souvenir of the show seems to be a £30 book of photographs … but this is the modern world.

PS Now that Eric and Alec Bedser are being honoured with statues in Woking , can Weller be far behind?

Woking Library: should its entrance be shifted to make way for a restaurant?

Woking Library occupies a central position on the town’s main square. Recently Woking councillors approved a planning application, despite some objections, that would allow a restaurant to occupy the library’s front entrance. The argument put forward was that this would put new life into a central area of Woking, as part of council officers’ determined plan to update the town.  But this plan is not yet a done deal – inasmuch as Surrey county council, which owns the library, has not so far agreed to being shunted round to a side entrance.  They may have to redesign the library to accommodate such a switch, and would accordingly require some facilitating money from Woking council, which already has debts of more than £200m.  Watch this space: I may be wrong, but this could develop into quite a row.

Farewell Woking News and Mail

First it loses its magistrates court: now Woking is losing its long-running newspaper, the News and Mail.

http://www.woking.co.uk/article/387/After+117+years,+News+%26+Mail+set+to+close

The News and Mail was left and dry when its owner, the Guardian newspaper group, sold off all its other regional titles but was unable to dispose of the News and Mail as well to Trinity Mirror, because of competition rules.  Now, after trying to find another buyer for this isolated title GNM says it will have to close it down.  It’s a great shame. The News and Mail turned into a very good tabloid a few years ago, packed with news, and even when it decamped to Guildford still had its finger on the local pulse. This will also mean the disappearance of the Woking Review freesheet,  which was always a cut above other local giveways. The final edition of the News and Mail contained a report that Woking’s increasingly-autocratic CEO said during a council debate that he was “disgusted” by a Lib Dem councillor’s comment that spending might have to be reined back on the facelift for Wolsey Walk. Rightly or wrongly, the councillor was reflecting a lot of residents’ fears about Woking council’s increasing levels of debt. In my day as a local reporter  - admittedly many, many days ago – it would be unheard for a paid official of the council to talk to an elected representative in such a way. I see that this week the unfeasibly-big Surrey Advertiser – think about turning yourself into a tabloid, chaps, it’s much easier to read – has launched a new Woking area edition. Let’s hope they will continue to report the wit and wisdom of Woking’s council officials as assiduously as the News and Mail did.