Harwich: Safe Haven — Terrace Edition

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

Shot on film and digital where stated.

Time drifts quick at the international shipping port at Harwich.

The quiet melee of machinery. Chess with cranes.

Huge, ungainly vessels loaded with containers edge past slowly but become distant dots in the time it takes to sip the last dregs of a summer pint in the Pier Hotel on the quay.

Superferries, that lurch through the estuary heading to The Hook of Holland, are there one minute but gone the next.

At Harwich and Parkeston FC in Essex, many of the volunteers have served for several decades.

Life, like a football match, can slip through fingers agonisingly swiftly.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich Low lighthouse. On film.

Chairman Tony Armstrong spent over 300 games catching crosses and palming the ball away as the Shrimpers’ goalkeeper in the 70’s, before turning protector of the club itself.

The late 1990’s saw Harwich and Parkeston ambitious but overstretched and in debt. A push for promotion from the Eastern Counties League failed and then, after years of toil, the club announced it was to withdraw from the league in 2010.

Non-League outfits like Harwich and Parkeston often swim against the tide, financially and in terms of recruiting players.

Occasionally, the tired decision is made to sink.

Yet, Armstrong and a whole string of volunteers decided that wasn’t going to happen, and that the heritage of the club, formed in 1875, was too important to let go.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Royal Oak. Main Stand rear. On film.

Armstrong rallied a group of local business people and measures were taken to secure the future of the Shrimpers at their historic and centrally located Royal Oak ground.

The debt was serviced as Harwich and Parkeston dropped out of senior football, falling as low as the Essex and Suffolk Border League at step eight of the non-league ladder. But, crucially, what emerged was a club held in Trust so that it would be guarded for years to come.

Offers, rumoured to be in the millions, to sell the Royal Oak for houses, came in but were rebuffed and the Shrimpers have risen, debt free, to step five in the space of a decade.

This October, Harwich and Parkeston will celebrate their 150th birthday, making the Shrimpers a cool 95 years older than Paris Saint-Germain, currently claiming the column inches at the Club World Cup.

Harwich is known as one of the “haven ports” of Eastern England, offering safe mooring for ships dating back to Roman times. The North Sea link between Harwich and the Hook of Holland has been sporting as well at transportational.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston vs Stanway Rovers. On film.

The club played Sparta Rotterdam several times in the late 19th Century and were invited to the Dutch team’s anniversary celebrations in 1968.

“Harwich and Parkeston should be looked on as a model for how clubs can turn themselves around” said Shrimpers secretary Andy Schooler on Saturday, characteristically stepping in to sell tickets because the gate-man is unwell.

Andy, an exiled Hibernian fan from Edinburgh, has served the Shrimpers for several decades himself and is indicative of the friendly and dedicated people that make this likeable club tick.

Armstrong, meanwhile, is off again, checking on the ladies in the tea bar and chatting with current club President Terry Francis, who was at Wembley in 1953 for the FA Amateur Cup final where Harwich and Parkeston played Pegasus in front of a staggering 100,000.

Saturday’s match is played in honour of another club President Norman Mann, who sadly passed away in 2021 but who the Shrimpers proudly recall was “lifted onto his father’s shoulders” to watch the great Essex Senior Cup winning side of 1937.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Royal Oak main stand. On film.

Indeed, the 1930’s saw Harwich and Parkeston’s record attendance of 5649 for an Amateur Cup Quarter Final vs Romford.

The Royal Oak can certainly hold more than recent attendances in the mid-low hundreds but Harwich and Parkeston, like all football clubs are having to compete with a host of other leisure options in an economy which is listing.

Still, The Royal Oak can be counted among England’s classic non-league grounds, not least thanks to its wonderful main stand, opened in 1948 and refurbished in recent years thanks to a crowdfunding push.

The elegant structure, which can hold 500 fans, is bedecked with the club’s black and white colours and attracts groundhoppers from all over the world to sit for 90 minutes in style.

Perhaps its most vocal inhabitant is border collie Skipper, who barked his support for the Shrimpers throughout their 1-7 defeat to higher level Stanway Rovers in humid July conditions.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Skipper the border collie.

Skipper is owned by local poet Collin Rossini who has written verse celebrating the spirit of Harwich.

It is that that homely joie de vivre that shines through at Harwich and Parkeston FC.

Tourists might flock to the big Premier League clubs but they should come to the Royal Oak instead, where they will receive the warmest of welcomes and if they are lucky, the chance to watch football next to the collie that puts most capos of continental curvas to shame.

After the match, the young Harwich and Parkeston players had a drink at the handsome Pier Hotel, while sea fishermen cast their bait as the clementine sun dipped on the horizon.

A Hungarian angler had waited all day for a bite, and when it came, it was a juvenile sea bass, unhooked and gone in the time it takes to sip the last dregs of a summer pint.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich. On film.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Punch and Judy mural. Harwich. On film.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. The Harwich “Banksy”. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. The Royal Oak inn. Harwich. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. The Royal Oak ground. Harwich and Parkeston. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston flag. On film.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston clubhouse. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston FC supporter. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Royal Oak ground. Harwich and Parkeston. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Pennants from Harwich and Parkeston opposition. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston corner flag. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Terry Francis (left) and Tony Armstrong (right). Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Catering. Harwich and Parkeston merch. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Catering. Harwich and Parkeston. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston. Clubhouse.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston programmes.. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston main stand. On film.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston main stand. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Skipper and Collin. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston banner. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston supporter. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston vs Stanway Rovers. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich and Parkeston stand. Digital.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Harwich estuary. Digital.

Stay.

Situated a stone’s throw from the picturesque Ha’penny Pier, Harwich’s The Pier Hotel makes a fine place to rest your head after a day at the match.

Built in the mid 19th Century in the Venetian Palazzo style, the hotel features a bar and restaurant serving a mixture of fresh sea food and other seasonal dishes.

The view from the second floor balcony is not to be missed, especially when the sun sets spectacularly over the estuary.

The hotel also offers a pop-up restaurant on the Ha’penny Pier and you can take a pizza and watch the fishermen try and land, sea bass, dogfish and skate.

Harwich and Parkeston FC is walkable or you can get a taxi to the game.

To book, visit www.milsomhotels.com/the-pier/