THE CLUBS PAST
The Remembrance Field was purchased in 1947 for the sum of £400, the Parish Council acting as Trustees. The money was raised in part by events such as Whist Drives, Auction Sales and Raffles, also a subscription list with subscribers donating one pound. In 1949 a grant was received from the Ministry of Education towards the purchase of the Field.
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A committee was set up which became known as Donhead St Mary Remembrance Fund Committee with Rev Peel as Chairman, he continued to do this until 1960. Being succeeded by Mr John Blanchard.
Today this committee is mainly responsible for the Remembrance Hall, whilst the Sports Club maintains the Field.
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The Sports Club has been in existence in some format or another since 1950 with Cliff Cordnell as Secretary, and 3 members each from the Tennis Club, Cricket Club, Football Club and 4 from the General Public.
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A Red Cross Hut was purchased from Ralph Coward which was situated at the Bottom of Back Horse Hill Lane. This was brought to the Remembrance Field and positioned behind what is now The New Remembrance Hall, and was used by the various sports until it was burnt down on November 5th 1959. A new pavilion was proposed and built for £596.13p. This pavilion slowly deteriorated in the 60s and 70s, until in 1971 Mr Eric Dewey and Mr Eric Doman carried out major repairs, this enabled the newly formed Cricket Club to use it. Then in 1978 an extension was added to the rear which comprised of Changing Rooms, Kitchen, Toilets, also the old pavilion was made into one big room. The skittle alley and games room being added at a cost of £20,000 later. This then allowed for many teams to play skittles during the winter months. Since then Richard Gray has been the Secretary with Chris Foster being only the Second Treasurer, the first being A. Meachen. In 1981 a full Club Licence was granted which enabled the Club to sell Alcohol.
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The Fete has been held in the Remembrance Field at various times throughout the years raising monies for various charities throughout the village. The Remembrance Fund Committee was formed in 1945 but there were no Minutes available, but there is a record of a Fete being held here on the 6th September 1949. Some of the events over the years included a Gymkhana, Clay Pigeon Shoot, Five-a-side Football Tournament and we have also had a steam powered car which was very popular. ​
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CRICKET
Donhead Cricket Team was formed in 1948 with the Duke of Hamilton at Ferne House donating £50 to buy some kit. In 1954 the consent was given to play Cricket on a Sunday as long as it was between 2 pm and 6.30pm, and as long as it didn’t interfere with Sunday School. The Cricket ceased in 1963 but was then reformed in 1974 with Bill Lawrence becoming President until his death in 1996. During this period in 1983 the Cricket club won the Division 3 League and in 1985/6 and 1986/7 toured the Isle of Wight. Recently they had to withdraw from the league but thankfully have now reformed. Over the years the Club has hosted several charity matches against the Lords Taverners, Injured Jockeys and an Australian Ladies Team. Some of the famous that have played on the hallowed turf are, Lord John Oaksey, Kevin Keegan, Patrick Moore.
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This year the Cricket Team will be playing in the Ranston League on Wednesday evenings with a new Captain and additional players, anybody wanting to play please contact us.
FOOTBALL
A Donhead Football team has been in existence for many years initially known as Donhead St Mary Football Club, it played at Knights Barn off the A30 and at Five Ways, Ludwell. But after World War II the Club was re-established and in 1952 changed its name to Donhead United. In the 50s the Club was very successful winning the league several times but folded in 1959/60.
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In 1966 after a meeting at the Lamb Inn it was reformed and in 1973 won Dorset Division 3 NE League. In the 80s the club had reached Division 2 and won several cups on the way.
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Gordon Green took over as Chairman in 1989 from Bill Lever.
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Gordon Green and Paul Hutchins started a youth section and along with several others had a few successful years winning several leagues and cups with varying age groups in the Dorset and Yeovil Leagues. This also led to a Ladies Team for several seasons, one of the very first in the area.
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Currently we have one adult team playing in the Dorset League, called Donhead United.
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All the teams would like to say a massive thank you to all our fantastic sponsors.
Quote for Our Groundsman who served the club for over 54 years (spotted on facebook written by GillDons who played at Donhead for several years):
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“Secondly to our grounds man Brian Gray, a veteran of the game, a real incredible man that does all he can for us boys, rings us up the second any of our away matches finish to find out the score, a character we’ve all fallen in love with in a very short space of time.”
TENNIS
A Tennis court was created in May 1950 with a wire fence added in August 1953. Like the Cricket the Tennis players asked permission to play on Sundays and was granted the same limitations of 2pm to 6.30pm. In 1960 Mr Hedges joined the committee and asked if a hard court could be layed, this was achieved by a Grant from the Ministry of Education and a plastic net was purchased for £24. In July 1961 permission was granted to play on the hard court but the children still had to use the Grass court. In August 1983 the Remembrance Fund Committee were told that improvements were needed to the courts and fencing. A plan developed to build a second court next to the existing one and have an all weather surface, this was also used by footballers for training purposes and is now home to our Netball team as well. This was at a cost of £10,000-£12,000, some of the money needed being donated by a local benefactor. This work went ahead and floodlights were also added to the facilities. In 2023 the floodlights were ungraded at the cost of £15,000.
NETBALL
Viv Budd approached the Club Committe in 2011 and since then a Netball team have been training and playing at Donhead Sports Club.
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That same year they entered two teams into the North Dorset Netball League and played their weekly matches in Blandford.​ As a club they done extremely well in the league and celebrated wins in both the Summer and Winter seasons.
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Viv also arranged a mixed tournament for the club each year. This also takes place at Donhead club and we try to make a day of it, playing rounders in the afternoon.
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They also are a great asset on Bonfire Night when they have helped with the collection for the Stars Appeal of Salisbury District Hospital.
CYCLE SPEEDWAY
At one time the club had a Cycle Speedway team using a cinder track in the field, The Donhead Dragons competed here. The Captain was Frank Mead with Jim Cook as Secretary. This was started in 1949 when the cinders for the track came from ‘Burltons’ then owned by Dunston’s, the track was situated at the corner of the Field behind the bus stop. At its height it even had an electric starting gate. The speedway finished in 1959. The lap record being held by Eddie Lane at a time of 35 seconds. Some of the residents might recognise the faces in the pictures below.
BOARD GAMES
One of our committee members has now started a board game evening and this happens on the first Friday of every month in the evening from 7.30pm when the bar is open.
THE FUTURE OF THE CLUB
In the January prior to covid the Committee of Donhead Sports Club invited members of all activities within the club and any other interested parties to an extraordinary meeting. The reason being the committee wanted to know what the members wanted for the future of the club. The response was excellent and relevant discussions of things that people wanted or expected from the club took place. One major issue that came from the meeting and subsequent meetings is that the club needs a major revamp/overhaul. The outcome was the committee went from a regular attendance of five elderly gentlemen to a forum of 15 of all ages and included several ladies.​ This was good to know that people using the club were ready to put themselves forward to keep a very necessary piece of the village going.
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There were several outcomes from the very first meeting held with this larger committee, they are as follows:
* A card machine has now been installed behind the bar and is now in regular use
* A welcoming sign has been fixed to the wall at the side of the entrance
* Another sign states the opening times
​* We also now have a Facebook page (if you are that technically minded) it is obviously “Donhead Sports Club” . On the Facebook page we will hope our teams will put information of where they are playing and what results they achieve. We will also try and be more informative as to events such as Bingo, Quizzes and Fireworks etc. Also putting information on the local social network “Nextdoor.com”.
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Also at this meeting we discussed the refurbishment of the club. This has started and we have redesigned the bar and painted the area, also the seating at the end is being recovered. 3 years ago we found that the roof was leaking and this has set us back in the major upgrade that we were planning, but with the perseverance of our Secretary Graham Stephens we are close to getting the grants required for recovering the roof. During the 3 years that we have been trying to secure the funding for this project the cost of doing it has very nearly doubled.
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At present we are looking for ideas to put together activities to start raising the substantial amount of money we require to go ahead with any future plans. Maybe you have an idea or activity that you want us to pursue as we want the whole village and surrounding areas to be involved in this exciting project. We want to hold events that the people in the village feel they need. Be it Tennis, Bingo, Quizzes, Cribbage, Pool or Fireworks, or any other obscure sport that a person or persons feel the area needs.