Today we face a Stevenage side that we played in our Conference season of 2004-05. With promotion into the Football League from that division coming into play in the 1986-87 campaign Stevenage are one of many clubs that have progressed from the non-league world to take their place among the professional ranks. Barnet, Cheltenham, Crawley, Dagenham & Redbridge, Macclesfield, Morecambe, Wycombe and Yeovil being the other teams currently in the Football League, I think, to have followed that exact route.
What of Accrington, AFC Wimbledon, Aldershot and Burton some (not many) might say? Well, all of those sides are from areas or towns where a Football League club has been in existence before, Burton in particular having numerous former guises. Which led me on to wondering what has become of the long gone sides, who started off in the Football League before 1900, and are nearly all from the north of England, that disappeared away either altogether or into the non-league ranks donkey’s years before promotion from the Conference and relegation from the Football League was introduced.
Birmingham St Georges, Bootle and Darwen are three straight off, formed in 1881 St Georges only took 11 seasons before disbanding through financial difficulties with Aston Villa and Small Heath (Birmingham City) already in existence. Bootle dropped out of the Football League in the 1890s, being replaced a larger Merseyside club in Liverpool, with a modern Bootle side now playing in the Premier Division of the North West Counties Football League, while Darwen are in Division One of that league having reformed as AFC Darwen in 2009 on the back of the 134-year old Darwen FC going bust, that club leaving the Football League in the late 1890s.
Northwich Victoria, now in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League, are another side we played in our Conference days and managed since 2009 by former Blue Andy Preece, who came into the newly formed Football League Second Division in 1892 only to resign just two years later due to a continual footballing problem, financial pressures, the Vics finishing bottom of their division and not applying for re-election in order to return to an amateur status.
Loughborough didn’t last long either, into the league in 1895 and out of it in 1900 after failing to gain re-election, the club then becoming defunct the following season when they didn’t turn up for their Midland League fixtures. The town having numerous teams since then with the current highest incumbent in the non-league pyramid being Loughborough Dynamo who play in Division One South of the Evo-Stik League alongside another Dynamo in Shepshed, only 15 years since we beat them 6-0 in the FA Cup by the way.
Gainsborough Trinity are the next side up, coming into the Football League in 1896 and then failing to be re-elected after finishing bottom of the Second Division in the 1911-12 campaign, Trinity losing their place in the professional ranks to local neighbours Lincoln City. Gainsborough have managed to survive as the original club to this day though where they ply their trade in Blue Square Bet North.
New Brighton Tower, based at the tip of the Wirral, are a funny one, with the owners of a tower (pictured) built in an attempt to rival the Blackpool Tower building a stadium in order to try to provide some winter entertainment, yeah, I’ve no idea what they were thinking either. Elected into an expanded Second Division for 1898-99 they signed some good players and finished 5th, 10th and 4th before financing professional football on gates of an average of 1,000 caused the owners to resign from the Football League in September 1901.
Another New Brighton side was then formed in 1921 out of the ashes of the bankrupt South Liverpool FC and they came into the Football League in 1923-24 when Division Three North was expanded, the club remaining at that tier until the summer of 1951 when they were voted out and replaced by our near neighbours Workington. New Brighton themselves being disbanded in 1983 with a 1993 formed New Brighton A.F.C. now playing in Division Two of the West Cheshire League.
Finally come Glossop, elected in in 1898 they stayed in the Football League until the final season before World War One saw matters suspended, their election out at that point seeing Stoke voted in. Now known as Glossop North End the Hillmen, from a town which is the smallest to have or had a side playing in the top flight of English football, are currently in the Premier Division of the North West Counties Football League.