THE CLUB THAT WOULDN’T DIE
Little Accrington Stanley’s ascent to English third tier a triumph for community and fans, reports Reuters
Fans call it ‘the club that wouldn’t die’, but born-again Accrington Stanley is no longer just surviving.
The northern English club overcame the odds by winning promotion to League One last week to take its place in the third tier of the English pyramid for the first time since 1960 and prompt scenes of jubilation at its tiny, ramshackle stadium.
The fans that poured onto the pitch at the final whistle of Tuesday’s 2-0 win over Yeovil Town, those in the stands that embraced each other and the players who downed beers with supporters in celebration, were all proof that Stanley is back.
So too were the older fans, stood quietly, observing the celebration and no doubt remembering when it seemed Accrington, a town of 35,000, was doomed to be without a professional soccer team.
Accrington FC, founder members of the Football League, went out of business in 1896 and its local rivals Stanley took over as the town’s main club.
But after decades in the lower divisions, overshadowed by close neighbors Burnley and Blackburn Rovers, Stanley went bust in 1962. Unable to pay its debts and taxes, the club was forced to resign from the Football League.
Its former Peel Park home was left to rot and covered in weeds, remaining for years a ghostly reminder of one of English soccer’s rare club deaths.
For many born after the club’s demise, Stanley was best known for a 1980s Milk Marketing Board television commercial which gently mocked the team’s obscurity.
But Stanley fans always knew exactly who they were.
“I was there in the 50s and 60s,” one of Accrington’s most famous supporters, former England cricketer-turned-commentator David Lloyd, told Reuters.
“We’ve had despair, no home, out of the league, then
We’ve had despair, no home, out of the league, then we were reformed by some wonderful people and then got back into the league.” David Lloyd, Former England cricketer and avid Accrington Stanley fan
we were reformed by some wonderful people and then got back into the league.”
The modern-day Stanley was reformed as a non-league club in 1968 but there was to be no swift return to the professional ranks.
Revival
In the late 1970s, it was playing in the Cheshire County League Division Two and it was not until former player and manager Eric Whalley took over as chairman in 1995 that Accrington began its climb back.
After working its way up the ladder, Stanley returned to the Football League after a 44-year absence in 2006, with current manager John Coleman in charge.
The step up proved tough and the club struggled for several seasons in the bottom half. However, two years ago, with Coleman back at the helm after managing elsewhere between 2012 and 2014, Stanley just missed out on promotion in the playoffs.
The club’s chairman, Andy Holt, a local businessman, took over in 2015 and has injected cash but also a new sense of optimism for a smalltown side with one of the lowest average attendances in the league at 1,853 in a stadium with a capacity of 5,057.
But as he stood, pint of ale in hand, after Tuesday’s triumph, he was keen to play down his own role.
“I take no credit for it. All I have done is put down the floor, from which they can work from,” he said pointing in the direction of the coaching staff and players, including 25-goal striker Billy Kee.
“For Accrington to get to League One is immense. People worked here for years for nothing, just to get it going. A lot of folk have put so much into this over the years and they deserve their day in the sun. I am proud of what they have done. It is their moment.”
Holt says his aims are not based around which division the team plays in.
“My remit is to make sure that in 50 years’ time this club is still here and that is what we are going to do. That is all that matters. The only survival of this club is in the community,” he said.
The history is never far from the minds of Stanley fans and staff. The raucous supporters singing in the stands reference the club’s 1962 bankruptcy and their antipathy for the ‘tax man’ in one chant.
The players certainly know the club’s history — assistant manager Jimmy Bell made them sit down and watch a documentary about the club’s checkered past this season.
The stadium itself (called the Crown Ground but renamed Wham Stadium in a sponsorship deal) certainly offers reminders of nonleague football, with a halftime cup of tea costing just a pound ($1.40)
Lloyd, quietly watching the celebrations in his flat cap, senses that the history being made now is on a more stable footing than in the past.
“Andy has been absolutely magnificent, he gets it. He gets that Accrington Stanley is community, it is what we are about,” he said. “The support, the atmosphere here, it just rolls back the years.”