Worksop Town F.C.

Worksop Town Football Club is an English football club based in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. They currently play in the Northern Premier League Division One South East. They are nicknamed the Tigers, and usually sport an amber and black home kit.

Worksop Town
Full nameWorksop Town Football Club
Nickname(s)The Tigers
Founded1861 (claimed)[1]
1930 (reformed)[2]
GroundThe Windsor Foodservice Stadium
Capacity2,500 (200 seats)[3]
ChairmanPeter Whitehead
ManagerCraig Parry
LeagueNorthern Premier League Division One South East
2019–20Northern Premier League Division One East (season abandoned)
WebsiteClub website

The club are currently playing their home games at The Windsor Foodservice Stadium, Sandy Lane, Worksop. It is a ground owned by Chairman Pete Whitehead.

History

First club

The club claims it was originally founded in 1861, which would make it the fourth oldest association football club in the world, however there is no contemporary evidence to support this claim.[4] The earliest record of football being played by a town club comes from 1873, when a group of 15 Worksopians took on 15 from the Pestalozzian school in the town.[5] The first recorded use of the Worksop Town name came in 1882, when a team using that name played Eckington on 18 February[6]

The club joined the Sheffield & District Football League in 1892 and also played in the Sheffield Association League during the late 1890s after an unsuccessful one-year stint in the Midland League.

Worksop re-joined the Midland League in 1900 and would become prominent members of the competition before the First World War. They finished as high as 3rd in the league in 1903, and in 1908 they reached the 1st Round of the FA Cup for the first time, losing 1–9 at Stamford Bridge to Chelsea in front of 18,995 spectators.[7]

After the First World War put a halt to football activity in the town, the game returned in 1919 when Worksop Town and Manton Athletic merged to become Worksop and Manton Athletic,[8] although the Worksop Town name remained in popular usage. The club joined the Midland League and in 1921 won the competition for the first time. The 1920s provided the club with their best spell in the FA Cup, reaching the 1st Round in four out of six seasons from 1921. In 1923 they drew Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane – the Tigers pulled off a shock by holding Spurs to goal-less draw. The Worksop board decided against hosting the replay at Central Avenue, and they were beaten 0–9 in the replay two days after the original tie, again at White Hart Lane. In 1926 they reached the 2nd Round for the first time after beating Coventry City at Central Avenue in the 1st Round – eventually losing by the odd goal in three to Chesterfield in the next round.

In 1930 the club withdrew from the Midland League and disbanded, with a new club being formed a week later.[9][10]

Current club

The new club initially had to play in the Sheffield Association League and Central Combination before joining the Yorkshire League in 1935.

After the end of World War II the club again folded, and a new club called Worksop Town Athletic was formed, initially competing in the Sheffield Association League, but later joining the Midland League. In 1956 they progressed to the 3rd Round of the FA Cup for the only time in their history, beating Skegness Town and Bradford City before losing out to Swindon Town at the County Ground. Worksop picked up their second Midland League title in 1966 before becoming founder members of the Northern Premier League (NPL) two years later. They would return to the Midland League after just one year however, as the Tigers finished bottom of the pile in the NPL's inaugural season.

They won their third and last Midland League title in 1973, and a year later re-joined the NPL, eventually finding their feet at this higher level. In 1978 they once more reached the 1st Round of the FA Cup, losing 1–5 to Barnsley at Oakwell. In 1989 they were relegated to Division 1 of the NPL, and had to move to play in Gainsborough when they were evicted from their Central Avenue home. They would spend three years in Gainsborough before returning to the newly built Sandy Lane ground in Worksop in 1992.

The Tigers regained NPL Premier Division status in 1998, by which time Chris Waddle was pulling on a Worksop shirt, and in 1999 they finished as runners-up in the NPL, only just missing out on promotion to the Football Conference. In 2004 they were founder members of the Conference North, but they only lasted three years in the division before being relegated back to the Northern Premier League, and it was around this time that the club fell into financial difficulties and lost ownership of their home ground at Sandy Lane, being forced to rent the grounds of Hucknall Town, Ilkeston Town and Retford United for three years.

In 2011 the club finally returned to Sandy Lane, but this time as tenants of Worksop Parramore, who had bought the ground and allowed the Tigers to play there. The 2013–14 season almost saw Worksop clinch promotion back to the Conference North but they were beaten in the league play-off semi-finals. At the end of the season owner Jason Clark revealed he would no longer be funding the club, plunging Worksop into a financial crisis, and shortly afterwards the decision was taken to resign from the Northern Premier League and join the Northern Counties East League (NCEL), entering the NCEL's Premier Division.[11][12]

The drop to the ninth level of the English football league system also meant a first foray into the FA Vase, having previously competed in the FA Trophy. They have gained considerable success in another cup competition, the prestigious Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup – as of 2014 they had won the competition eleven times.

Worksop were crowned Northern Counties East League champions on 13 April 2019, after beating Albion Sports 4-0.

Managers

League and cup history
  1. League play-off final drawn with Parkgate United and title shared
  2. League play-off semi-finalists

Grounds

Worksop initially played at two different grounds on Netherton Road, before they, along with the cricket club, moved to Bridge Meadow, also known as Newcastle Avenue in 1891. This had separate Cricket and Football pitches along with a quarter-mile track. In 1901 they moved across the River Ryton to Central Avenue, staying there until 1988, when they were forced to move to play in Gainsborough. They returned to their home town in 1992 when a new ground was built on Sandy Lane. They lost ownership of Sandy Lane in 2005 and again had to groundshare elsewhere before returning to Sandy Lane in 2011, this time as tenants of Worksop Parramore.

A series of pictures taken at the Worksop Town vs. Sheffield Wednesday friendly in July 2011.

  • The main stand.
  • The north end of the ground.
  • The west end of the ground.
  • The east end of the ground, with clubhouse.

Honours

Records

References
  1. Worksop Guardian, 7 January 2005
  2. Nottingham Evening Post 14 May 1931
  3. Worksop Town Northern Counties East League
  4. Stocks, J. (2017) A History of Worksop Town FC Volume one.
  5. Sheffield Telegraph, 15 March 1873
  6. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 February 1882
  7. Nottingham Evening Post 13 January 1908
  8. Green Un 8 February 1919
  9. Hartlepool Mail, 6 September 1930
  10. Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 11 September 1930
  11. Worksop Town Northern Premier League
  12. Club Statement Worksop Town
  13. Worksop Town Non-League Directory
  14. Worksop Town Manager Evo-stik League
  15. Simon Clark Worksop Guardian
  16. Worksop Town appoint Shirebrook boss Shaw Worksop Guardian
  17. http://www.worksoptownfc.co.uk/2018/01/19/ryan-hindley-resigns

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