Downham open new stand after ground improvements

The man behind the ground improvements at Downham Town says he wanted to do something positive to help the town and its community.Jonathan Rose, from Evolution Doors, said: “I got involved when I was approached by the club to sponsor the main stand and conversations started about the club needing to increase the capacity to remain in the Premier League.”I’ve also lived in Downham Market all my life and my family have made some great contributions towards the town over the years.”I thought it was about time I did something positive myself. The team and I at Evolution have been proud to get involved to help the club. “The Norfolk Senior Cup winners faced possible demotion from the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division had the work, which has cost thousands of pounds, not been carried out.Rose explained: “The project entailed the design and extension of the main stand at Downham Town to increase the seating capacity.”With the help of Dan Higginbotham, from Void Architecture, the design and build were approved and the work began. “We came up against some difficulties getting permission but we prevailed in the end and now the town has a stand with a capacity required for the Thurlow Nunn Premier League. “Once the initial wait for building regulation was over and approval granted the actual build work duration was around six weeks.”I enrolled the help of local companies who I work alongside and they are advertised on the stand.”The new stand, which seats more than 200 fans, was officially opened before the club’s Premier Division clash with Ely City on Wednesday night. And Downham celebrated their new facilities with a 2-0 win to extend their winning sequence in league and cup games to six matches.Lagshan Sivakumar opened the scoring with an excellent strike in the first half before Harley Murkin wrapped up the three points by adding a second towards the end. Downham boss Dale Stokes said: “I thought first half we controlled the game well. We were patient, kept the ball nicely and caused them a lot of problems.”There were moments when we could have made something happen but chose the easy option and we weren’t clinical enough. “We should have gone in a few goals to the good and made the second half more comfortable.”I’d say the majority of the second half, Ely were the ones doing most of the work and we just defended, which we did well and, other than the snapshot off the post, we’ve not been troubled.”Harley has then nicked one off the keeper in the last few minutes and finished it off for us.”A serious injury to Artur Visocanskis soured otherwise what had been a memorable night for the club.”It turns out Artur has suffered a fracture to his left leg/ankle,” said Stokes.”He’s going to be out now for some time and we are all gutted for him.”