"Clothed in white apparel, holding
Palms of victory in their hand."

The club became so popular that Guild summer outings suffered, the young people preferring tennis to picnics. In January, 1928, the Trust resolved to take over the Recreation Club, which until that time had been run as a private venture, but which by that time was feeling some financial strain. The land and property by then were valued at £1400. To raise the £600, which was the agreed sum by which the Trust acquired the property, Messrs. Ault, Whittle, Shipway, Rolfe and Miss Mellor advanced further loans to the Trust.

The 1930s saw a great increase in members, one of whom recalled: "Who remembers the Tennis and Bowling Club in Hazelwood Road with Mrs. Crabbe and Mrs. Pye stooping and swooping; with Percy Pardoe, youngest of the lot, snatching victory from the veterans? And the Tennis Club, more social than sporting, where there were many trysts but few serious matches?" The Lady Bowlers had a stall at the 1935 bazaar and the stallholders included Mesdames Bates, Bourne, Carter, Crabbe, Horrocks, Jones, Powell, Pye, Scott, Skirrow, Taylor and Wilkinson.

The halcyon days of the 1930s came to an end with the outbreak of war in 1939. In 1940 Hazelwood Road was severely bombed and two bombs landed in the recreation ground. One exploded on impact, causing damage estimated at £500, but the other failed to explode. Most of the residents of Hazelwood Road were ordered to leave their homes until the bomb was defused. The writer has recollections of one small girl spending the next few days at her grandmother's house, initially clad only in pyjamas and siren suit (that all in one garment made famous by Winston Churchill) until allowed to return home.

By 1948 there was growing interest in re-opening the ground and in November of that year the Trust authorised the spending of £1700 to put in order the two hard courts, two grass courts and the bowling green. The 1950s saw a return to something like the summer days of the 1930s and the club numbered nearly seventy members, some bowlers, some tennis players, some both. Many people still remember Saturday afternoon tea prepared and eaten in the pavilion, a rather precarious wooden structure, and with white table cloths spread over the wooden trestle tables. Inquisitive wasps and spiders were brushed aside with nonchalance as Mrs. Roberts presided in state at the head of the table with the large serviceable teapot in hand. Miss Watson would arrive at the ground riding sedately on her bicycle and once on court could, and did, trounce many a younger player with her strong returns. On the bowling green Messrs. Lockwood, Fletcher, Wagstaff, Daw and Boddy were some of the outstanding players, although they were beaten by a young John Hewlett for the 1962 bowling cup. Some of the trysts, conducted as the evening shadow of the pavilion spread across the bowling green, did result in serious matches, as several married couples in this circuit and beyond will testify.

By 1964 the popularity and membership of the club were declining and the tennis courts began to fall into disrepair. After one abortive attempt to sell part of the plot the whole of the recreation ground was sold for housing development in 1968. Green Acres now occupies the site.

The club was formed in 1925 with a playing membership of twenty. At this time there was another club in being, called the Freebooters, which was composed of many members of the Sunday School. A report of one early match between the two teams mentions that the Freebooters dismissed the Wesleyans for four runs. In the Wesleyans' second innings it is recorded that Daw, after being missed by Daw off Daw, went on to make ten not out. in 1927 the Freebooters, whose membership was declining, became absorbed into the Acocks Green Wesleyan C.C. and this increased the playing membership to twenty-nine men. An interesting extract from the minutes relates to the procedure adopted in admitting new members. The club secretary was required to pin the name of the proposed new member, written on a piece of paper, on a tree at the ground at Olton Hall, where the note remained for fourteen days. If no objections were received at the end of that period the new member was admitted.

At that time Olton Hall belonged to one of the church members, George F. Morley, who lent a portion of a field by the hall to the cricket club for their ground. The dressing rooms and pavilion were part of the stable block. Olton Hall was sold in 1934 to a brewery company: the "Newport Diner" on Lode Lane now occupies the site.

The 1926 A.G.M. records that: "After a rather long discussion the question of fencing round the pitch as a protection from the horses was left entirely in the hands of the Ground Committee. The question of colours for the cricket team was soon decided, green and gold being easily the favourite. The cricket caps were to have green and gold quarters." Three years later another A.G.M. decided to purchase two bats, two pairs of pads, two pairs of batting gloves, a pair of gauntlets and one match ball for the total cost of £5 6s 0d. A proposal for a 10/- annual subscription, less 6d for every hour spent in work at the ground, was defeated and so the subscription remained at 7/6d.

In 1930 Acocks Green entered the Wesleyan league Competition and became league Champions in the first season. The secretary reported: "This season was our best year as regards playing performance for we scored 1038 runs against our opponents' 413, and on two occasions we won games by over 100 runs."

By 1933 the team was finding difficulty in fielding a full side but this year saw one of the most thrilling matches played:

"At the tea interval we were in a hopeless position yet at the finish the game was ours. We were being entertained by our Stechford friends, for a day match on Whit Monday. They batted first, finally scoring 130 runs. We followed and made thirty-seven and no one reached double figures. Stechford, nearly 100 runs to the good took their second innings. Their captain felt their position strong enough to  to reverse the batting order and he sent in his tail end batsmen, presumably to give them practice. This gave us some early wickets. With the score at thirty-two for six wickets the Stechford team declared, leaving us 1¾ hours to get the 128 runs required for victory. We made a fair start but all of a sudden we were horrified to see both Boddy and Daw at one end at the same time and there were still nearly 100 runs to get. When we saw Daw returning to the pavilion the game appeared lost. Hyner joined Boddy and ninety runs were scored before Boddy was dismissed. here were still forty-one runs to get when Harold Daw went to the wicket but the remaining runs came quickly, Hyner scoring thirty of them and Harold Daw eleven. Our final score was 132 for four wickets."

This was nearly Acocks Green Wesleyan C.C.'s swan song. Olton Hall was sold the next year and the club moved to a field at Olton Farm, Lode Lane, Solihull. One invaluable asset of Olton Hall to the home team had been its distance from either Olton or Solihull railway stations. Visiting teams not blessed with transport had had to carry match gear and trudge along dusty lanes and arrived considerably fatigued before play began, worth twenty runs to the home team at any time.

By 1935 the club was in great difficulties. One Saturday they could only field five members plus the match secretary's younger brother. They withdrew from the Wesleyan League. The end came in 1936. At the last A.G.M. the treasurer, Harold Sharpe, pointed out that the reason for the small profit of 1/4d on the sale of refreshments was due to the amount of chocolate stolen from the pavilion. Sadly, the green and gold caps were laid aside and the horses returned to grazing in peace on the pitch.

The club restarted in 1946 but now the hall was only available on Monday evenings. In 1959 a junior section was opened with play allowed between 6.0 and 7.0 p.m. By 1971 the adult membership figures were twenty-five of whom thirteen were church members. By the terms of its constitution over half of the members of the club had to be church adherents for it to continue as a church club. When the Sunday School buildings were let on a long lease in 1973 the club moved to the Roman Catholic school's premises in Acocks Green as the large hall was no longer available. Membership of the Junior section was restricted to members of the Intermediate Department of the Junior Church. The critical balance of church members to outside players tilted to the outside players and in the late 1970s the club was disaffiliated from the church.

Introduction

Preface

"Methodists as they are term'd"

The first church

The present church to 1927

The present church from 1927 to 1986

The Memorial Windows

Ministers

Organists and choir

The Tin Tabernacle

The Junior Church

The Junior Missionary Association

Uniformed organisations

The Guild/Circle

The Ladies Sewing Meeting

The Women's Cheerful Hour

Recreation Clubs

Subscribers to New Church Building Fund 1882

Names in the corridor of the Sunday School building

Roll of Honour

Church Trusts 1874 to 1976

Caretakers

Endpiece

Bibliography