Full Moon Sports

Full Moon Sports is one of the older teams from South West Bath to play in the Bath and District Football League on Sundays. Based at The Full Moon Pub in Twerton High Street, the team formed in about 1991 or 1992. The Bath and District Football League is itself old, beginning in 1901 with a Saturday Division and expanding to include a Sunday Division in 1978. It operates within a 12 mile radius of Bath and now has five Sunday Divisions.

When The Full Moon closed for a couple of years in around 2002, the football team moved up the road to play for another Twerton pub - The Centurion, before returning to The Full Moon in 2008. The change of pubs explains some of the team's name changes over the years. Orginally called Full Moon Sports, their name changed to FM Sports, then Centurion Sports, then back again to Full Moon Sports recently.

Left: The Full Moon Pub; right: striker Dan Scott prepares a shot at goal

Full Moon Sports are sponsored by S R Dennis & Sons building contractors, and have local resident Duncan Reeves as their manager. When playing at home the team wear blue shirts with black shorts, and when playing away they wear red shirts with black shorts. Currently placed in the Second Division, they have won the Fifth, Fourth and Second Divisions in the past. Teams also play in several cup tournaments: the Tom Morgan Cup, Stan Milsom Cup, and Secretary's Cup. The Full Moon has played in three cup finals but never won.

After the league ends in April, the players start to miss the football by mid summer and so begin their pre-season training at Pennyquick Park. Anyone is welcome to join in and if they are good enough, they can be signed on. When enough people want to play it is possible to enter a reserve team which starts in the Fifth Division.

Their home ground is Lansdown Playing Fields but Full Moon Sports would ideally like to have the Newton Memorial Ground at Twerton for their home turf, as some of the players would be able to walk there. Unfortunately too many other teams want it.

A lot of community development work focuses on facilities that are available in the daytime such as community cafes, drop-in centres etc, often overlooking the fact that those resources are inaccessible for people who work during the day. So pub sports teams fill a gap by providing activities in the evenings and at weekends. The football gives young adults something to do. At the time of writing (2009) the youngest player for Full Moon Sports is aged 16, and 25 year-old Dan Scott from Redland Park has been with the team since he was 14.

The standard of football is very good and the team is generally made up of local people such as centre midfielder Steve King from Pennard Green. People from outside the area are also welcome. For example, players from Belgium and Holland have been accepted onto the team when they resided in Twerton for a time. When newcomers contact the Bath and District Football League, asking if there is a local team they can join, the organisers recommend that they begin by trying Full Moon Sports.