Kingstonian and their ground have achieved more press coverage than most other league clubs during the last year. For those unfamiliar with the story here goes. At the start of the 2000-1 season Kingstonian had great hopes of a good conference position and indeed began upgrading their ground to football league status. Despite an excellent cup run that saw them beat both Brentford and Southend away from home, the season ended in disaster with relegation from the conference. Early into 2001-2 it became clear that the club had serious financial problems and cancelled the contracts of most of its players. Soon after it went into administration where it has remained until July 2002 and as I write the club is now out of administration. Despite these problems and a squad of very inexperienced players a mid-table position in Rymans premier was acheived. Crowds though were poor and often little more than a third of the previous seasons conference crowds. During the saga relating to who would buy the club Brentford have taken an option on groundsharing with Kingstonian that would commence at the start of 2003-4 season and allegedly run for around 10 years. This has not given much pleasure to the Brentford fans. The story does not stop here though. During the summer of 2002 the Football League gave permission to Wimbledon FC to move to Milton Keynes ,most likely from 2003-4 onwards. As a result the fans have disowned the club and formed their own new club AFC Wimbledon. This new club was refused entry to the Rymans league but has been accepted into the Combined Counties league. For season 2002-3 they will groundshare with Kingstonian at Kingsmeadow.
The ground itself is a decent small ground that is easily of conference standard but in my opinion falls short of being league standard for a number of reasons. The ground has minimal parking and the side-streets are going to have to take a huge burden with the increased crowds that will arrive from AFC Wimbledon. There is a main stand with two further sides of the ground having covered terracing. The end behind one goal remains open.
I do not believe this is the end of the story yet. Let us wait and see!

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