The water started flowing into the New Road practice area at about 4pm on Monday afternoon, and just kept on rolling. It flooded the entire ground and half the car park, as well as the nearby racecourse, the rowing club and the public footpath – which is now a popular hang-out space for swans. The head groundsman, Stephen Manfield, a man of a remarkably perky disposition, sits on the balcony of the club’s sports bar watching the fourth flood of the off-season do its business, the water coming in from the burst banks of the Severn as well as round the back across the fields. For the benefit of Spin readers he pokes his measuring stick into the water – “four and a half feet in the shallow end”, and still rising.
Last off-season New Road was flooded eight times (enough for the chief executive, Ashley Giles, to question the long-term viability of the club), and the 2024-25 winter is tracking in a similar way. Most floods last nine to 10 days, though this is the highest since Worcestershire’s end-of-season party in September. Manfield stirs the murky water. “It is deep, it is minging, it is unpleasant, but is my job and I love it.”
