FOOTBALL: The Rise and Rise of Westfield FC
HUGH SULLIVAN
It’s early Saturday morning and there’s just one car parked outside the Knight & Davey Community Stadium in Westfield. Must be the groundsman – there he is, on a tractor mowing the pitch. He waves and drives across, a young man (to me) in his 30s.
“Hi, I’m from the Hastings Independent newspaper, come to interview your chairman, Jack Stapley,” I say. “Ah,” he says, “that’s me.”
Stapley is co-owner of Westfield FC along with local accountant Graham Knight and Steve Cooke, former Premier League defender with Bournemouth. Cooke still plays elite football with Queens Park Rangers in the Championship, but grew up in Hastings and was persuaded by Stapley, a friend from boyhood, to put a little of his hefty on-pitch earnings into the remarkable community project that the club represents.
GROUND DEVELOPMENT
The ground that Stapley’s been mowing is on the east side of the main A28 road through the village. It has been there as a playable football pitch only since January 2024, though its development was in the offing more than a decade before.
The club, founded in 1911, has for several decades harboured ambitions to offer more than a standard village amenity. But the team was barred from promotion to the higher divisions of the Sussex County League (SCL) by the lack of floodlighting. Its long-existing ground, Parish Field on the west side of the A28 main road, was too cramped and too close to neighbouring housing to be upgraded. Access from the road was difficult, with poor parking availability. In 2009 the clubhouse was burnt down in a fire. And when the SCL was re-structured as the Southern Combination Football League (SCFL) in 2015, the team found itself effectively demoted into the Mid-Sussex League (MSL).
However, by this time an imaginative deal had been struck between prospective housing developers and Westfield Parish Council. Planning permission was granted to build 39 houses east of the main road, conditional on a section 106 Agreement that involved transfer of land beyond the estate for a new football ground to be shared between the club and the local community.
Building eventually started in 2019, with substantial sponsorship funding offered by St Leonards plumbing and heating firm Knight & Davey (no relation to co-owner Graham Knight), whose name the stadium now bears. Floodlights have been installed, and a modest stand erected in the name of club president Graham Drinkwater, who has served it for over 50 years as former player (record goalscorer and appearance holder), manager, secretary and chairman. He and his wife still serve behind the bar, wash kit, litter pick and support the team home and away.
The club is hoping to obtain a grant from the Football Foundation to upgrade the pitch to an all-weather 4G surface, capable of accommodating more intensive use.
SEASON OF VICTORIES
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the facilities springing up around them, the current footballers enjoyed a remarkable season in 2025/26.
The first team, managed by Harry Stapley, Jack’s brother, won the MSL Premier League and will be promoted either to the SCFL or to the Southern Counties East League (formerly Kent League) next season. They have a settled squad and some excellent individual players – notably their Solomon Islander centre forward Rooney Riugaemai, centreback Joe Dicken and ex-Hastings United midfielder, Bradley Pritchard.
The second team, having remained unbeaten all season, won the East Sussex League by a wide margin and, come the autumn, will take the first team’s place in the MSL.
The trophy shelf in the new club office will also have to accommodate the winning of this season’s Sussex Intermediate Cup, the Hastings Intermediate Cup and the East Sussex Premier Cup.
Altogether, Westfield FC run five adult teams for men – first, second, third, Under 23s and Veterans. There’s also an under 18s team; 12 youth teams ranging between under 7s and under 14s; and a new adult women’s team is hoped to start next season.
Most of these teams still play on the old Parish Field ground. Jack Stapley says that, once a 4G pitch is installed on the new ground, more of the teams could play matches there, and it could also be used for squad training (last season they had to hire 3G facilities in Eastbourne). In the meantime it’s back to the mowing.
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