Brief History of the Maurice Chandler Sports Centre

                                                  by  Arnold Cope

 

 

The Sports Centre was founded by a police inspector serving at Market Drayton police station,

after whom the centre is named.

 

Chan, as he was more commonly known by his friends, served at Market Drayton, from 1956

to 1963.   He was not only an excellent police officer but was also never without a smile and a friendly word.

 

The Chairman of the Magistrates at that time, Col A Heywood Lonsdale, said to Chan on one occasion, “Is there nothing we can do to get these kids off the street?” and as a result of this,

in 1960, Chan went to work in his spare time to do just that.

 

Chan being the man he was, of course, had many contacts one of which being the RAF, at

Tern Hill.  At that time, A Site, better known as 24 MU, that is the whole site which is partly

owned by our neighbours Greenvale, and ourselves, was unused except for one or two aircraft stored.  One of these aircraft was a Vulcan Bomber parked in the corner adjacent to the rifle

range.

 

The first thing that had to be done in order to prepare the building and make it suitable for use

as a Sports Centre was to clean the floor of all its grease and oil.

I was more than happy to assist him with that task when he came to see me one day, and

asked me, “Is there any chance of one of those steam cleaners to try and remove some of this

oil from the floor of the hanger?” and, as he gave every second of his spare time toward trying

to organise the sports for the young people, I could hardly refuse.

 

In the early days, it was known as the Tern Hill Sports Centre. Chan did not have an allowance

from the Council to set up and run the Sports Centre, he merely encouraged people around

him, who eagerly volunteered to help him, because of his own enthusiasm.  He set up a five

aside football pitch in the Hanger, and obtained various fittings and fixtures from sites around

Tern Hill that were being disbanded at that time, he also obtained timber benches and seats

in order to build a fence around the pitch,   He slowly built it up adding more sports, as time

went on.

 

Due to Chan`s success with the Sports Centre, the Market Drayton RDC eventually bought the

site from the Ministry of Defence and Chan was then asked to form a management committee

to run it at which time he was given a grant of £100 each year towards the running of the

centre.

 

Because of Chan`s hard work in making the centre so successful, he was awarded the British Empire Medal, an award well-deserved and eventually the centre was renamed the Maurice Chandler Sports Centre after him in his honour, photo of Chan bottom left.