AFTER my final ever round of golf at William Wroe I can’t help feeling a little nostalgic.

For a 13-year-old me with a few small clubs that I’d cobbled together in a little bag, “Willy Wroe” was Augusta National.

Even the very reasonable, approximate £1.50 a round or £35 annual fee was well beyond my budget, but thanks to an older sister who bought me an annual pass, I went on to spend every daylight hour pretending to be Nick Faldo in the pursuit of excellence, before walking back to Woodsend to face the music from my Mum as another tea ended up cremated.

I have mixed feelings over the Trafford BC ownership of the course. I could never have hoped to afford the green fees if it were not for council ownership, however it was probably this ownership that ultimately caused its decline.

All the talented and hard-working staff who worked there probably felt helpless as wave after wave of cost cutting measures were rolled out to them every year at budget time.

The fact that the course was even playable at times was testament to the tireless groundstaff who braved stray golf balls, unsavoury characters roaming the fairways (both golfing and non-golfing), vandalism, and geological issues, such as poor drainage.

I’ve long since moved away from the area but I’ve followed from afar with great interest as the news has filtered through. On the one hand it was an “unviable business” and in a normal business context I can understand that, but on the other hand it was such an integral part of the area’s social fabric in that it was accessible to almost everyone, regardless of ability.

No-one ever looked down on me at William Wroe because I was a junior golfer, my clubs were un-branded and my golf shoes falling to pieces. I could play golf, I enjoyed it, I behaved, that was it.

Technology in the form of smartphones and tablets mean kids are glued to these instead of benefiting from places like William Wroe. When they’re all stuck in traffic on their way to being admitted to a scaled-down Trafford General hospital (don’t get me started on that) with health issues related to obesity and lack of exercise, the cost savings gained from closing William Wroe to build housing on (let’s not pretend it’s anything else) will quickly be eroded.

RIP William Wroe. You provided a lot to the community and, given sufficient attention, you could have been the greatest asset the area has.

Instead you were walked off a cliff by a group of ill-informed, self-serving bureaucrats who should have been fighting for their people and the generations that follow but decided to take the easy, dare I say it, more lucrative option.

Peter Sheridan via website