Not long now... These green fields in Telford have seen generations of sporting glory and triumphs, but mostly just carefree play. But soon they will be covered with housing, bringing down the final curtain on the site of the old Phoenix School in Dawley.

As proposed, the development will see 212 homes built.

The school story began almost 70 years ago with the opening of the then Dawley Secondary Modern School in Manor Road on September 17, 1956, under founder head Jim Rennie.

Our modern view is looking across the playing fields towards where the school buildings stood, in the area of the trees in the distance, while our archive photo shows the school in October 1960, nestling among council houses which were themselves quite new, having been built during the 1950s. It comprised three teaching blocks - for humanities, maths, and science - together with a school hall, canteen, and gymnasium.

The Georgian-style building in the near distance, left, is the old Pool Hill School, and the massive hangar-like building in the distance is the Horsehay Works, which was known by various names over the years - Adamson Alliance, Adamson Butterley, and A B Cranes.

By the early 1960s big things were afoot for Dawley, as it had been earmarked to become a new town, bringing expansion and regeneration. Dawley Secondary Modern became a comprehensive school in September 1965, and was renamed Phoenix School. In mythology a phoenix is a bird which rises from the ashes of its predecessor.

The future held the prospect of it becoming the flagship school of Dawley New Town, but Dawley was destined to be bypassed by officialdom. In 1968, before anything much had happened in Dawley, the whole idea was superseded by a more ambitious project, that of Telford New Town, which would be created by roping in Wellington and Oakengates areas.

Among the features fondly remembered by former pupils was an open air swimming pool, and a miniature railway which ran on a track in the grounds. An innovative move for its time saw school facilities opened up to members of the public outside school hours, with the creation of Phoenix Centre.

By the early 1990s Phoenix's very existence was under threat as county councillors grappled with a problem of surplus places. However they voted in September 1992 to save Phoenix, and by doing so effectively closed The Manor School in Hadley.

A different threat came on December 29, 1995, when the original main hall, canteen, and gym, were burned down. Three teenage boys were accused of arson but there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial.

In 2013 the school moved to a brand new building created at Paddock Mount, one of the old spoil mounds which are still to this day part of the Dawley landscape. The students began at Phoenix Academy, as it had become, on September 11, although the official opening was a year later, in September 2014, by former Olympics champion Sally Gunnell.

The old buildings in Manor Road were demolished in January and February 2014.

The Phoenix name did not live on, the new school being renamed Telford Langley School in 2015, and the planned housing development will complete the physical erasure of a place of so many schooldays memories of Dawley folk.