Amersham Town F.C.

Football club infobox
clubname = Amersham Town
fullname = Amersham Town Football Club
nickname = The Magpies
founded = 1890
ground = Spratleys Meadow
Amersham
capacity = 1,500 - 66 seated| chairman =
manager = Dale Welch
league = Spartan South Midlands League
Division One
season = 2007–08
position = Spartan South Midlands League
Division One, 11th

Amersham Town F.C. is a football club based in Amersham, England.

Ground redevelopment

The refurbished Spratleys Meadow was official announced open on the 12th August 2007. To celebrate the new ground Amersham Vetrans team took on the Celebrity XI featuring Luther Blissett. Amersham Town Vets lost 5-3. Since then the Spratleys Medow pitch has been described as 'one of the best in its league.'

Club history

They were founded on 13 October 1890 in the Crown Hotel, Amersham, best known now as the location for the hotel scenes in Four Weddings and a Funeral. The chairman at that first General Meeting was the headmaster of Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, The Reverend E B Cooper. He had been recommended to the school by Dr W G Grace and was a capable all-round sportsman. Also present at that meeting was the local blacksmith, a draper, a saddler, a grocer, a wood stapler and other local noteworthies. By way of contrast the General Committee one hundred and eleven years later includes a salesman, an electrician, two software engineers, a butcher, a wine merchant, a civil servant, a librarian and a van driver. The first set of rules for the club were approved on 17 October 1890. They included, amongst the usual regulations establishing the Committee and so forth: i. that the club be called Amersham Town Football Club (its name to this day); ii. that the subscription be one shilling and sixpence (7.5p in today's currency); iii. the bad language on the field be strictly prohibited; iv. that no member shall wear any nails, iron plates or gutter perches on the soles of his boots; v. that the club colours be black and white (leading to their nickname “The Magpies”). Squire Tyrwhitt Drake was elected President. The first match, against Wycombe Marsh, was played on Barn Meadow in November. Amersham lost 1-2. Over the following years up to the First World War the club thrived. Although it never had much money, its first foray into the Berks and Bucks Junior Cup in 1892-93 was followed by entries into various local cups and leagues. Other notable events were the arrival of the railway in 1892, which led to the creation of Amersham-on-the-Hill and extended the catchment area for fixtures, and Amersham Town winning the Wycombe and District Combination League in 1903. The latter was celebrated at a Smoking Concert, which might have caused the deficit on the accounts for that year of 11s 2d. By this time the club had also moved its base to the Eagle Public House which conveniently backed on to Barn Meadow. The war robbed the club of some local players and supporters but in 1919 it was revived to win two league championships and reach the finals of three cups. In 1920, at a rental of £10 a year, the club leased Spratleys Meadow from Squire Tyrwhitt Drake. One of the Squire’s young daughters, Diana, kicked off. Amongst the spectators was a young lad, Bob Woodbridge, who is still one of our keenest supporters.

In 1929, as the depression started to bite, several players were laid off at Weller’s brewery and on the Squire’s estate. But in the same year the Brazil boys (George, Ron and John), who were later to become keen supporters of the Club, built the Bowyers pie factory on what is now the Tesco site. In the 1930s the club flourished. New dressing rooms were constructed at Spratleys Meadow. Although there were at that time no showers or electricity today’s players would recognise them at once. In 1935 a new stand was added, described by a local journalist as “roomy and lofty”. Jim Redding, who had joined Clapton Orient from Amersham as a goalkeeper, now returned as trainer. But the war intervened. At a rent of 12s a week the new changing room were leased to the Council as an emergency mortuary. Shelving to take the bodies was inserted but, fortunately, never used. After the war the slow pace of demobilisation made it difficult for the club to re-establish itself but, by April 1946, it was again a going concern. In the same year it first entered the Spartan League.

In 1953 the club left the Spartan League for the newly formed Hellenic League. In the same year, George Brazil purchased the freehold of Spratleys Meadow from the Drakes and become President of the club. This was followed, in 1953-54, by one of the most successful seasons in the club’s history. The Magpies finished sixth in the League and were the first club to win the Hellenic League Cup. In 1960 George Brazil died and his brother, John, took over as club President. For many years the figure of John Brazil, leaning over the fence of Spratleys Meadow that abutted his garden was a familiar sight at matches. 1963-64 was another outstanding season for the Magpies as they were Hellenic League Champions, having been promoted from Division One to the Premier Division the previous season. Ron Leigh, who with his wife Janet, were to support the Club for the next thirty years, became Treasurer and in 1968 the Club purchased a second hand timber classroom from a private girls school as their first clubhouse. But from then on it was mostly down hill for two decades. In 1970 the Annual General Meeting was abandoned for lack of support and this was reflected on the touchline. Indeed the Bucks Examiner commented “gates have never fallen at Amersham – they have never been there.” The club finished bottom of the Premier Division and drifted into debt. In 1972 the Club rejoined the Spartan League but success eluded it. In 1975 it suffered twenty three straight defeats in that League and the Manager resigned. It is best to draw a veil over the next few years except to mention the stalwarts such as Horace Freeman (heralded in 1972 on ITV's ‘The Football Show’ as the oldest active worker in soccer at the age of eighty six), Bob and Hannah Cater and Jess Pearce, It was they and a few others who kept the club alive in this period.

There were bright spots - in 1977 floodlights were installed at Spratleys Meadow and in 1983 a brick built extension and bar was added to the wooden clubhouse. But the brewery loan taken out to fund this only added to the debt. In the 1989 hurricane the old grandstand was blown forty yards across the road into neighbouring allotments. The club struggled to survive. Perhaps fittingly the start of Amersham Town’s renaissance coincided with its centenary in 1990. To celebrate the fact a booklet ‘A Hundred Years of Club and Town’ was published by Jean Archer, a local historian whose father had played for the club in its glory years after the war. The youth section, founded by Colin Alexander and Mike Gahagan the previous year, began to establish itself in the South Bucks Star League. Over the next few years, under the chairmanship of Mike Gahagan, Raymond Jones and Howard Lambert, and Treasurer Alan Hayes, the club re-established itself. First the burden of debt was reduced to manageable proportions. Then, agreement was reached with landlords, the Brazil Trust, for a new ninety-nine year lease to run from the expiration of the current lease in 1998 securing the future of the club. In the meantime Paul Pitfield, who had played for the club for several seasons, took over as reserve team manager. In 1994 he was promoted to first team manager. In early 1997 a new stand was erected to replace the one destroyed by the gale. It was formally opened by Graham Taylor, the Watford, Aston Villa and England manager. He, as a friend of Howard Lambert, had several years previously agreed to be President of the club.

Although the club failed to finish sufficiently high in the table to make the Premier Division when the Spartan and South Midlands Leagues merged in 1997 it retained its senior status. In 1988 a twenty one year lease was taken out on the same derelict allotments into which the stand had blown nine years earlier. Two years later they had been converted into splendid new pitches for the youth section. The floodlights at Spratleys Meadow have been enhanced and the clubhouse and changing rooms improved. On the field the first team has consolidated its position in the senior division of the Spartan South Midlands League under Paul Pitfield’s management but promotion continues to elude it. This is in part because it refuses to pay players. Any surplus income is put into ground improvements.

League history

External links

* [http://www.amershamtownfc.co.uk// Official website]