"John Rumming, a great man and CTFC legend, passed away at home in the early hours of Sunday 9 September. Our deepest sympathies go out to John’s family at this sad time.

John was a former Chairman of Calne Town FC and also held every position in between during his 20 years with the Club. John gave so much to the Club and will be forever remembered. Rest in peace, John." Calne Town FC

For funeral details and also a donation page for Dorothy House CLICK HERE

The Ground Hop Weekend takes place from Friday 5th October to Sunday 7th October covering seven matches across the Western League area.

Non-league side Litherland Remyca have been thrown out of the FA Cup over an unpaid £10 fine.

The Merseyside club unwittingly fielded a suspended player in the 4-2 win over Charnock Richard in the extra-preliminary round on 11 August.

Read the full story HERE

A birdseye view of Sherborne Town v Bishops Lydeard from Saturday 4th August.

Video courtesy of JRH Media.

Premier Division Hengrove Athletic’s opening game yesterday against Bridgwater Town was at the newly-named Paprika Park, following their tie up with local Whitchurch restaurant Paprika.

The club recently announced a three year rolling partnership agreement starting this week which is the largest of its kind in the history of the Toolstation Western League club with Paprika now becoming the main club partner. Hengrove’s ground will be renamed "Paprika Park" under the terms of the deal and the distinctive Paprika name will also be emblazoned on the first team and reserve shirts, the club’s polo shirts and tracksuits and a stand at the ground.

Hengrove Athletic FC chairman Mike Greatbanks commented "The past few seasons have been very successful for the club both on and off the pitch. We are currently playing at the highest level in our history and have retained our local community-based ethos too. By partnering with a multi-award winning, well respected business like Paprika, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to those values. We’d like to put on record our sincere thanks to Tan, Macz and Shah Rahman and look forward to working with them as official partners for many years"

Paprika’s Tan Rahman commented "When the question of sponsoring our local team Hengrove came up, we unanimously said yes! All of us were really excited for many reasons, the main one being we love football. Having spoken to Hengrove, they came across as a really nice bunch of people doing amazing things with the community. When that happens, the least companies like ours can do is try to help. Whether that be financial contributions, moral support, social media or other outlets, every little helps. We look forward to having an amazing partnership – come on the Grove!"

Celebrating their 70th anniversary this year, Hengrove are in their highest ever position having finished ninth last season. The club have also maintained strong links to the local community; holding two fundraising football matches for children that need medical equipment and also donating two dozen Easter eggs to the Emergency Ward at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

The Grant Application Service has been in place for three years now and in that time it has helped a number of clubs in the Western League to achieve successful grant awards totalling £500k

The Service provides advice and guidance to clubs who are looking to update their infrastructure as well as hands on management where required.

The Service can provide advice on all aspeces of grant funding, including planning, finding suppliers and completion of all necessary documents to run your project or prepare documents for the Football Association or other lottery funds.

There is no cost at the initial stage and where a more hands on approach is required in general the costs are low, as costs can be claimed back from the grant received.

Clubs we have assisted so far include Barnstaple, Gillingham, Oldland Abbotonians, Keynsham, Street, Cheddar, Plymouth Parkway.

If you would like to discuss your club's infrastructure needs and funding, please call Steve Nicholls on 07454320934 or Martin on 07754543719

With the constant heavy rain putting paid to most of the non-League programme once again last Saturday, Western League press officer Kerry Miller went down the 4G route and enjoyed an unusual treble with three games in three different counties last Saturday.

One young side who are always worth watching are Exeter City’s U18s and they look on course to repeat last season’s triumphs with a League Cup semi-final thrown in for good measure. The club’s training ground is the impressive Cat and Fiddle complex in Clyst St Mary which many years ago was the home ground of Western Leaguers St Lukes College and the changing room pavilion is still there and largely intact although the iconic Rothman’s Western League scoreboard was finally taken down a few years ago. The old Western League pitch is still there and surrounded by advertising boards but the youngsters now have a 4G pitch alongside the varied grass pitches, all of which would have taken a battering had they had been used on Saturday.

Instead the all weather surface came up trumps and City hammered their counterparts from Premier League AFC Bournemouth 5-1 to emphasise what a fine set up the Grecians have at youth level.

With Western League games going down at regular intervals and even Shepton Mallet’s fine pitch giving up the ghost, it was 4G again for the afternoon part of the day and with Roman Glass St George away, Keynsham Town’s home game with Almondsbury was definitely on while a few games in Bristol did get the final go ahead elsewhere.

Keynsham have played at the Crown Field since just after the war and in recent seasons the ground has been transformed into a much used and much changed venue which gains from not being completely enclosed by a hideous 12 foot chain link fence like so many others. The new seating came courtesy of Bristol City’s Ashton Gate make over and having been painted and brushed to within an inch of its life, it has possibly never looked better or brighter.

A good crowd, including a number of neutrals just happy to see a game, watched Keynsham go back to the top of Division One with goals from Tauren Williams and top scorer Matt Brown, his 50th for the club in 70 games.

The third game in the 4G trilogy was at Oaklands Park, formerly the home of Southern League Almondsbury Town but now the HQ of Gloucestershire FA and on the opposite side of the road to Almondsbury. Oaklands Park is used by a host of clubs including Roman Glass, Lebeq FC, and Bradley Stoke Town from the Bristol and District League Senior Division as well as by the county and Bristol Rovers U23 side on occasions.

This Saturday, for a 5.30pm kick-off it was the turn of Premier Combination side Real Thornbury who had the services of Taunton Town winger Ross Staley for one game before he headed off to Perth, Western Australia to play and coach. Predictably he was far too lively for the Oldland Abbotonians’ second string and netted five in an 8-0 win. Oaklands Park, along with the other two grounds, has an excellent surface but the complex suffers a little from the plethora of small sided goals which are dotted about the place including a group of them directly behind the main goals which is off putting to spectators and can’t be any fun for the players of officials. However with plenty of covered seating and standing areas it is a comfortable venue and for those whose footballing fix can stretch to more than one game on a Saturday, theregular 5.30pm kick-offs are an interesting idea.

Picture courtesy of www.sportsandsafetysurfaces.co.uk

The Android version of our league app is now available on the Google Play Store. And it's FREE!

Keep up to date with all the latest fixtures and results for the Toolstation Western Football League. Follow your favourite Western League club with the 'Clubhouse' giving you their last result and their next fixture. Get directions to the match at the touch of a button using your devices maps app. Find information about all the Western League clubs including admission prices, kick off times and contact details.

Our thanks to Cocoon Development for writing and developing both our apps.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE APP

The new Toolstation Legaue App for iPhone and iPad is now available to download.

Keep up to date with all the latest fixtures and results for the Toolstation Western Football League. Follow your favourite Western League club with the 'CLUB HOUSE' giving you their last result and their next fixture. Get directions to the match at the touch of a button using your devices maps app. Find information about all the Western League clubs including admission prices, kick off times and contact details and more...

Click on the image to download the our new App now!

Information is available on how to recognise concussion and on how concussion should be managed from the time of injury through to safe return to football. At all levels in football, if a player is suspected of having a concussion, they must be immediately removed from the pitch, whether in training or match play.

You can dowload a copy of the FA's Booklet by following this link

The current men and women of Her Majesty's Armed Forces are doing such an exceptional job both at home and abroad during these difficult times.

The Toolstation Western Football League is proud to offer all current serving members of HM Forces FREE ADMISSION to all League matches.

Proof of ID will be all that is required at the turnstile.