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Greenwich Avenue, NOTTINGHAM, NG6 0LD

Bungalows and semis built during the building boom of the 1950s.

When I was at school this was our playing field. The houses on the left are on Greenwich Avenue. The trees in the distance on the right mark the former course of the Nottingham Victoria to Derby Friargate railway line, which crossed this part of Basford on a high embankment since levelled.

In the fifties and sixties Greenwich Avenue (or Mill Street) Playing Field was used by Forest Fields Grammar School, and I spent many happy games afternoons in the summer term practising on the matting which covered these three concrete strips (and many unhappy winter afternoons trying to avoid getting involved in any action on the rugby pitch). The field, still owned by the City Council and a local amenity, is largely occupied by the pitches of Basford United FC and Football Academy. The houses in the background are on Greenwich Avenue.

Most of the inter-wars houses on Bagnall Road are brick, but a few are of the local Bulwell stone.

For more about Basford United, a Northern Premier League side, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basford_United_F.C. Greenwich Avenue was once a school playing field, and the ground has been developed since the club moved here in 1991. Image] shows it in 2015.

This was once the Forest Fields Grammar School Playing Field, known as Greenwich Avenue or Mill Street. In the summer term the First XI wicket was more or less in the middle of this expanse of grass, the practice nets against the back-garden fences of the houses on Greenwich Avenue.

The man with the dog, who had lived in Greenwich Avenue for nearly sixty years, remembered the playing fields being laid out in the 1950s. When I was at school, this was our games field. Basford United's ground was built more recently. The club plays in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Division One South.

This is, I know, a dull picture probably only of interest to me and others who went to Forest Fields Grammar School http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1370280 in the fifties and sixties. This was our playing field, reached for games afternoons on foot, bike or 43 trolleybus to David Lane. The changing rooms (vaguely visible in the middle of the middle distance), over which a rugby-crazed sadist of a PE teacher presided, are shown more clearly in another Geograph image http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/949740 . The River Leen is in the foreground, and the Highbury Vale tram stop behind the camera.

Detached houses dating from the 1930s. The second from the left is faced in crazy-paving-effect terra-cotta, which had a brief vogue at that time. The other houses are red brick, with bargeboards.

This was once Forest Fields Grammar School's Playing Field. It is now the clubhouse of Basford United Football Club, whose ground occupies part of the field. "Welcome to Greenwich Avenue", reads one of the signs on the gable end, but the green City Council sign at the gate calls it Mill Street Playing Field (though Mill Street is a little way away). We Forestians used the two names interchangeably. The building was semi-derelict in 2008: see Image