The contrast between the two images could not have been more stark.
One showed a quintessentially English sporting pavilion complete with a traditional cricket scoreboard, balcony and large clock overlooking neat playing fields, evoking warm beer and the sound of leather on willow.
The other, taken some two decades later, showed the same building as a derelict ruin, surrounded by shoulder-high weeds and covered in graffiti, evoking urban decline and dereliction.
The ruinous state of the plainly once smart building and its surroundings provoked astonishment and anger when it was posted on social media earlier last week – the initial post alone notching up 2.5 million views on X as well as tens of thousands of reposts and shares across other platforms.
And the accompanying text suggesting that the man who had been looking after it so well had been evicted after the building was purchased provoked comments like ‘what a tragic waste’ and ‘this is symptomatic of what’s wrong with Britain’.
Now the Daily Mail can reveal the extraordinary backstory behind the images and how a bitter legal battle between wealthy businessmen led to the building’s demise.
And we have also uncovered the remarkable life story of the one-time groundsman who brought the scandal to the nation’s attention.
Because that initial social media post was by elderly Tony Kay, who had found himself in the national spotlight once before, decades earlier, which is indirectly how he ended up being a groundsman at that pavilion.
This is how Old Addeyans Sports Club on Blackheath looked before caretaker Tony Kay was unceremoniously evicted when it became the subject of a compulsory purchase order
Twenty years on from that day that Mr Kay was moved on, he posted this picture of how the once-thriving community pavilion looks today, covered in weeds having fallen into disrepair
Mr Kay, pictured here with his long-term partner Becky Tallentire, was forced out of the pavilion as it found itself at the centre of a dispute between two businessmen
Mr Kay, 88, was a highly successful professional footballer – he was even at one point the most expensive player in the country with stints at Everton, Sheffield Wednesday and the England team.
But he became caught up in one of England’s most notorious match-fixing scandals which brought his professional career to a close.
Tony started his career as a tough-tackling wing half at his hometown club, Wednesday, where he scored 10 goals in 179 league appearances.
He signed for Everton for a then-record fee of £60,000 and was quickly named team captain and helped the club to their first league title in 23 years in the 1962-63 season.
This success led to him being capped for England, scoring in an 8-1 victory over Switzerland in 1963.
But the following year his career came to a dramatic end after he was caught up in a match-fixing scandal which was exposed by a Sunday newspaper.
An investigation revealed he had been one of three Sheffield Wednesday players who had placed bets on their team to lose a match against Ipswich Town in December 1962.
Tony admitted making the bet but insisted a man of the match performance proved it had never been his intention to throw the match.
The players were convicted of conspiracy to defraud and Kay was fined £150 and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment.
He was aged 28 when he was released from jail after 10 weeks but he was banned from football for life by the FA.
Tony went on to play in the amateur game before moving to Spain in 1974 and remained there for 12 years.
On his return to the UK in 1986, he slipped into a life of anonymity as a penniless odd-job man.
And so he was delighted to land a job at the Old Addeyans Sports Club.
Speaking at his home in Southport where he lives with his long-term partner Becky Tallentire, he told the Daily Mail: ‘After I was banned from playing football I had to find a job because I had nothing.
‘I ended up at the clubhouse in Blackheath as a live-in caretaker for around 12 years.’
The role at the club in Blackheath meant overseeing the running of four football pitches, three tennis courts and a cricket pitch, which were used by local schools as well as club teams.
Explaining his role, Tony said: ‘I lived in the clubhouse, and I was groundsman, barman, cleaner, ref and all round good guy.’
But he told how after 12 years he once again ended up jobless and homeless after he was abruptly evicted from the property because its owners wanted to turn the site into a luxury housing development.
Describing how his job at the club came to an abrupt end 20 years ago, Becky – who took the dereliction picture on her phone said: ‘Tony just woke up one day and the bailiffs were trying to get in.
‘He initially refused to let them in and ended up kind of barricaded inside the clubhouse but eventually he realised he had to move out.’
Tony said the bailiffs had arrived without warning and laid siege to the property after it was made the subject of a compulsory purchase order.
We can reveal how the club came to be closed down after the land was bought by a company called Densitron Technologies which designed, developed and delivered display technologies and related electronics.
Its founder and executive chairman was Clifford Hardcastle who was chairman of the governors at Addey and Stanhope secondary school in New Cross and was a leading light at Old Addeyans, its alumni association.
Mr Kay wasn’t always a sports club caretaker. In his younger years, he was a highly successful professional footballer – and even at one point the most expensive player in England
But following a fall in the share price of Densitron, which at one point had a turnover of more than £40million, the business leader was forced out of the company in 2002 claiming he had been the victim of ‘corporate murder’.
A bitter row then erupted over the land after Mr Hardcastle claimed adverse possession or ‘squatter’s rights’ to allow the club to continue operating there.
In its 2005 annual report, Densitron revealed it had launched legal action against Old Addeyans insisting its claim to the site was ‘totally without foundation’.
The following year the company revealed it received a last-minute offer to end the case just days before a civil trial was due to take place.
Densitron said it had incurred significant legal expenses and had been paid £45,000 by the club towards the costs of the proceedings which had ended in a settlement confirming the company’s ownership of the land whilst permitting the club to remain in occupation ‘for only a short period’.
The following August, Densitron said it had been in discussion with the local authority over the terms of a ‘proposed land swap’ adding that it had an offer ‘for some of the land’ with negotiations ongoing.
Official documents show the playing fields were purchased by the London Borough of Greenwich (LBG) in December 2007.
That part of the land is now used as the sports grounds at Thomas Tallis secondary school, which itself boasts a number of professional footballers among its former pupils including the late Spurs and Everton defender Pat Van Den Hauwe as well as actor Dominic Cooper.
Densitron retained ownership of a 1.25-acre site featuring the pavilion and revealed in 2008 that it was seeking ‘residential planning permission’.
But the sticking point appeared to be that the land, which sits beside a conservation area, was part of an urban green belt site known as a Metropolitan Open Land (MOL), which restricted development.
Densitron continued to lobby the council to remove the restrictions on development claiming in 2013 the clubhouse had been a magnet for anti-social behaviour which had led to ‘vandalism and arson’.
The company and their representatives said separating the site from the playing fields had made it ‘incapable of performing its previous use’ and there was ‘no justification’ in retaining its status.
The tennis courts which remained on the site had not been in use for seven years, they said at the time and added that the site contributed ‘little, or most probably nothing, towards the purpose of MOL’ in providing a ‘predominantly open character’ and ‘breaking up built up areas’.
The company went into voluntary liquidation in 2023 – three years after a legal charge over the land entitled to Barclays Bank was ‘satisfied’ in May 2020.
The site remains undeveloped, but its potential value is highlighted by the next door property which was formerly the groundsman’s cottage of an adjoining tennis club, which was separately owned.
Planning permission was given to turn the former bungalow into a magnificent three-storey ultra-modern six-bedroomed home which was bought for £2,500,000 in 2017.
Planning documents from 2011 show that the Old Addeyans pavilion had already at that stage been largely demolished.
The tennis club, which had also been abandoned for years was due to be turned into a bowls club in 2018.
But plans fell through when permission was refused to turn the bowls club’s existing home into a housing development.
Last year plans to turn the site into a padel tennis complex were rejected following complaints from neighbours.
While the future of the abandoned pavilion remains uncertain, Tony was left to reflect on his life as a forgotten fallen idol and how his dream of playing for England’s World Cup-winning team in 1966, which he appeared to be heading for, ended in tatters.
He said: ‘It was a different game then and I loved it. I would say I was a robust player – but not dirty. To put it simply I took the ball off people.
‘The World Cup would have been nice but it was not to be.
‘I have my memories and met some amazing people such as Brian Clough and Denis Law. I have to be happy with that.’
Tony remains a cult hero on Merseyside and was among former players introduced to the crowd when Everton said an emotional farewell to Goodison Park last May before moving into their new state-of-the-art stadium.
Tony’s post promoted a frenzied reaction with critics describing the ‘criminal and despicable’ affair as ‘the perfect snapshot’ of the decline of Britain over the last 30 years.
Mr Kay signed for Everton for a then-record fee of £60,000 and was quickly named team captain and helped the club to their first league title in 23 years in the 1962-63 season
One said: ‘This is heartbreaking. A thriving community hub turned into ruins by compulsory purchase. What a waste.’
Another said: ‘This is heartbreaking to the point of chest-bursting sorrow.
‘A vibrant community hub where families gathered to enjoy the pitch, tennis courts, cricket and curry has been reduced to a graffiti-covered ruin by a forced “land deal” purchase.
‘A typical British planning failure. Who approved this and who benefitted? An audit is needed.’
A third critic said: ‘Metaphor, the Britain that was to the Britain now!’
