Bristol Aeroplane Company FC
c1937 - c1950
It is believed that the Bristol Aeroplane Company Football Club was formed in the 1930's. Effectively, they had one really successful season, finishing second in the top flight of the Western league in the 1939-40 season. The war broke out and although the club reesumed after the war, they were in a rapid decline, eventually dissolving at the end of the 1949-50 season. They played three seasons in the FA Cup, losing all three games and failing to score a goal. So, not too successful on the pitch but they really did make some iconic aircraft, amongst them the Bristol Fighter, the Blenheim and the Beaufighter. The company also laid the foundation for the work that led to the creation of Concorde.

Blackburn Olympic
1878 - 1889
A very short lived team but one that played a major part in the growth of the game amongst the working-class communities in the North of the country. Until Olympic won the FA Cup in 1883, just five years after their foundation, the competition had been dominated by clubs from London and predominantly from the upper classes. The list of winners before Olympic reads Wanderers (5 wins), Royal Engineers (2), Old Etonians (2), Oxford University (1), Old Carthusians (1) &  Clapham Rovers (1). Blackburn Olympic paved the way for the likes of Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion and Preston North End, to end the Southern domination of the FA Cup. Unfortunately, he club could not compete with the new wave of clubs, such as Rovers, an folded in 1889, eleven years after their foundation. A short history but one that should not be under-estimated in terms of influence on the game.

New Brighton Tower
1886 - 1901
Formed in 1896 and dissolved in 1901, New Brighton Tower FC were a very short-lived football club but they did manage to win the Lancashire League at the first attempt and spend three seasons in the Football League. The club played in a stadium built alongside New Brighton Tower, a structure designed to rival nearby Blackpool Tower. The tower did last longer than the football club but was demolished after the First World War when it had fallen into disrepair.

Olney Town
1903 - 2018
It's a little sad to be including Olney Town in an article about former football teams, especially as I have had the pleasure of watching them play fairly recently. The club existed from 1903 until it was dissolved in 2018, joining the United Counties League in 1966 and remaining there for the rest of their playing days. It's fair to say that they never set the League alight, playing the majority of their football in Division One. They did, however, spend 5 years in the Premier League in the late 1970's. The nature of their East Street ground meant that they could not charge an entry fee to their matches. Instead a committee member would walk around the ground with a donation box. 

The Zulus
1879 - 1882
The Zulus football team exited for 3 years, between 1879 and 1882. The were setup in Sheffield in order to raise money for families of soldiers killed in the Zulu War (think Rourke's Drift). It was an interesting concept whereby players were taken from many of the local clubs. Playing in an all black kit, the players didn't use their own names, instead adopting Zulu names for games. During the three years that they existed, they apparently never lost a match. The club was forced to disband in 1882 following controversy surrounding their players being paid to play even though they were strictly an amateur team.

A little festive half-time quiz where, to help you out, the first letter of each answer spells out the words Merry Christmas.

M. The first winners of the FA Trophy. They beat Telford United 2-0 at Wembley in the 1969-70 competition.
E. A seaside town on the South coast more famous for retirement but actually supports no fewer than there non-league teams.
R. Which West Midlands club, based near Walsall, were managed by former West Brom midfielder Richard Sneekes between 2014 & 2016.
R. Bracknell Town, North Shields, Ilkeston and Carshalton Athletic all share this nickname.
Y. The nickname of Halesowen Town

C. Which East London club, now playing in the Essex Senior League, holds joint second place for all time FA Amateur Cup wins (5)?
H. Eastern Counties League side Stanway Rovers ground shares a name with a current Championship team's ground. What is it?
R. Formerly known as Valley Sports this Warwickshire side, currently in the United Counties Premier, play their home games at Butlin Road
I. Nickname of National League South side Braintree Town which they share with Scunthorpe United
S. Jamie Vardy started his career at this South Yorkshire non-league outfit
T. Eastern Counties side who represent a Norfolk market town that can boast a statue of Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring.
M. This North West Counties Division One South side gets its name from the former home of the Premier League team that its founders supported.
A. Leicestershire side who, despite their name, have actually played at the same ground on Cropston Road since their formation in 1946.
S. A founder member of the EFL Division 3 North in 1921 this club from Greater Manchester now ply their trade in the Northern Premier League



Answers:
Macclesfield Town
Eastbourne
Rushall Olympic
Robins
Yeltz

Clapton
Hawthorns
Rugby Town
Iron
Stocksbridge Park Steels
Thetford Town
Maine Road
Anstey Nomads
Stalybridge Celtic

Bourne Town - The Wakes
Hereward the Wake led the Anglo-Saxon resistance against the invading Norman armies following their invasion via Hastings in 1066. Legend has it that he operated mainly in the Fens, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire, something akin to a lowlands Robin Hood. Although no-one knows for sure, Bourne lays claim to be the birthplace of Hereward, hence the clubs nickname, The Wakes.

Chalvey Sports - The Stabmonks
Chalvey Sports, founded in 1885 and currently playing in the Hellenic League, have one of the more unusual nicknames in non-league. The Stabmonks' name probably dates back to the the Victorian era. The most likely source of the name comes from a tale about an organ-grinder's monkey biting the finger of a child. The father of the child then stabbed the monkey to death which, obviously, greatly upset the organ grinder. The Chalvey villagers took pity on the man, had a collection, purchased a new monkey and held a funeral and wake (involving free beer) for the departed animal. The wake proved so successful that it became an annual event for quite some time. To this day anyone born and bred in Chalvey is described as a stab-monk. The full tale can be read on the Slough History Online site - sloughhistoryonline.org.uk

Sandhurst Town - The Fizzers
The Sandhurst Town club web site quotes two possibilities for their unusual nickname. The first, and probably most logical, is that they were named after a Friendly Insurance Society (F.I.S) that was set up in the town in the early 1930's. The alternative is that it is derived from the chant 'Fizz, Fizz, Bang!', shouted by the club's supporters when the team scored a goal. Personally, that's the one I would go with.

Hallen - The Armadillos
The origin of the club's nickname is not that clear, even on the club's history page on its website there is no direct mention of where the moniker came from. However, further inspection of the wonderful account of the club's early days recounted by lifetime member and one of the founders, Gordon Bradley, shows that the club originally played their games at Kingsweston House when they began in 1949. The house was used as a British Army camp during the war and, leftover from this time, was a Nissen hut that the club adopted as changing rooms. Nissen huts bare a striking resemblance to an armadillo, which could well be where the odd nickname came from.
 
Sittingbourne - The Brickies
Sittingbourne Football Club can be traced back to 1886. However, there are records of a team in the town previously to the current incarnation. The fact that the club was born in the late Victorian era also gives some clue to their nickname, The Brickies. A few years prior to the foundation of the team, the local brick and tile industry was the biggest in the country, even outstripping the Midlands brickworks. The Grade II listed London Bridge - Greenwich Railway Viaduct is constructed entirely of Sittingbourne brick.

Weymouth - The Terras
Not, as I first thought, a shortened version of Terrors, referring to the them terrifying opponents. Is is actually a reference to their original terracotta coloured kit back in the 1890s. Since that time the clubs colours have changed slightly and are now more maroon and light blue. However, the nickname remains.

Merthyr Town - The Martyrs
The club gets its nickname from the origins of Merthyr Tydfil, the town that the club represents. Legend has it that Tydfil was the daughter of King Brychan of Brycheniog, which at the time was an independent kingdom between Wales and England. Tydfil was martyred after being killed by pagans late in the 5th century. The town was named Merthyr (Welsh for martyr) Tydfil. The club was reformed in 2010 but has retained the nickname. For a full account of the history of football in Merthyr the club's website has a very good article - https://www.merthyrtownfc.co.uk/our-story/history/

​Football has been a popular sport around academic institutions from its inception, one of the early succesful FA Cup sides being Old Etonians. In this article we take a look at a few other university and school old boys teams that are or have been playing in the pyramid.

Team Bath
We start down in the West Country with a team that existed for just 10 short years yet managed to secure four promotions and climb up into the sixth tier of English football. Team Bath was the football team of Bath University. Founded in 1999, they joined the Western League Divison 1 (Step 6) in 2000, gaining promotion to the Premier League at the first attempt. Two seasons later they won the division and progressed into the Southern League Division 1 West. A sixth place finish the following season was enough to gain promotion to the Southern League Premier Division. Progress slowed a little at this point, but after two lower half finishes they were then runners-up two seasons running, achieving promotion to the Conference South nine years after their foundation. Unfortunately, their demise was as rapid as their rise. After their first season at Step 2 they were informed by the FA that because of their club structure (they were not a limited company) they wouldn't be able to climb any higher or compete in the FA Cup. The club took the decision to resign from the league and the club was no more.

Loughborough University
Founded in 1920 as Loughborough College, the club mainly played in local football in the Lecistershire area. They joined the Leicestershire Senior League in 1966 but then left senior football six years later. In 2007 the club made a return to the pyramid after promotion to the Midland Combination Premier League. This was followed by a further promotion two years later, seeing the club rise to the Midland Alliance. After ground-sharing with fellow Loughborough side, Dynamo, The Scholars moved into the new 3,300 capacity University Stadium in 2012 and are now successfully plying thir trade in the Midland League Premier Division.

Solent University (Team Solent)
The Sparks, as Solent University FC are known, were formed in 2005 and became founder members of the Hampshire Premier League in 2008, finishing runners-up twice before gaining promotion to the Wessex League in 2012. Known as Team Solent until the Summer of 2019, promotion to the Wessex Premier League was gained on the back of the Division One title in 2015. In the 2016-17 season they made it to the Fifth Round of the FA Vase before going down 5-2 at home to eventual winners South Shields.

Team Northumbria F.C.
Northumbria University's football club started life in the Northern Alliance League Division Two, progressing through the Alliance with promotion to Division One in 2002 and then into the Premier League the following season. They finished runners-up in the fiurst season, third the following year and then won the Division in 2006 gaining promotion to the Northern League Division Two. Teh Divisio0n Two title was sealed in 2012 and the club made the lead into Step 5 football. There followed a relegation after two seasons and a further promotion three years later. Although the club maintained their Step 5 status, they resigned from the Northern League in the close-season at the end of the 2017-18 campaign and now play in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Northern Premier League

Northampton ON Chenecks
The ON in Checnecks name stands for Old Northamptonian and refers back to the ONs Association that was created towards the end of World War I in memory of 94 staff memebers, pupils and former pupils Northampton School who had perished in the conflict. The football team was founded as Chenecks FC in 1946. The name comes from letters taken from the school's four houses, CHipseys, SpENcer, BECKett and St Crispins. It's fair to say that Chenecks have not set the footballing world alight in the last 70+ years. Two United Counties Division One titles and three Northants Junior Cup wins are their highlights. However, after over 40 years in Division One, the club has now seemingly stabilised at Premier Division level and, who knows, titles and cups could be just round the corner.

​Addlestone & Weybridge Town
1885 - 1985
The club originally just used the name Addlestone FC, adopting the name Addlestone & Weybridge Town in 1980 just five years before their demise. However, the high point in the club's history probably came in the first season after they adopted their lengthier name when they reached the First Round of the FA Cup. They were drawn against Division Three side Brentford and, although drawn at home, chose to play the game at Griffin Park. They came away with a very creditable 2-2 draw before going down 2-0 in the replay. One other claim to fame that the club would have not wanted was that they were suspended by the Surrey FA in 1872 for supporter hooliganism.

London Caledonians F.C.
1886 - 1939
Although a London club, Caledonians had a Scottish player base. In the 1905-06 season they were one of the founder members of the Isthmian League, playing in the league until it was halted by the outbreak of war in 1939. They won the Isthmian League in that inaugural season, following that success up with five further league titles, the last coming in 1925. They made their second FA Cup Third Round appearance in the 1927-28 season, going out 3-2 at home to Crewe Alexandra. The club never re-appeared when football restarted after the war.

Leicester United
1900 - 1996
Known as Enderby Town until 1984, Leicester United were the county's second biggest team until their demise in 1996. Arguably the club was more successful under their original name than after they adopted the city's moniker. As Enderby Town they reached the 1st Round of the FA Cup as well as the 3rd Round of the FA Trophy, going out to AP Leamington and Bishop Auckland respectively. The club can boast a number of famous former players. Amongst the list is Chris Balderstone one of the last of the breed to play both professional football and cricket. Some of the older readers (like myself) may remember Chris as a member of the Carlisle United side that briefly led the First Division in 1974 (he actually scored the penalty against Spurs that sent them to the top).

Pegasus AFC
1948 - 1963
Pegasus AFC was formed shortly after the Second World War. It was a joint venture between Oxford University and Cambridge University. The club only existed for 15 short years but in that time won three Amateur Cups and the Oxfordshire Senior Cup. Possibly one of the greatest legacies of the club is the list of famous names who coached Pegasus, including three soon to be FA Cup winning coaches in Vic Buckingham (West Bromwich Albion 1954), Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison (Manchester City 1969). Arthur Rowe, widely credited as being the inventor of the give-and-go style of play, also coached Pegasus for a while.

Wanderers FC
1859 - 1887 (2009 - )
When you look at the record of Wanderers FC and compare it to the length of time that the club was active, it can be argued that they are, pound for pound, the most successful FA Cup side ever. In the 28 years that Wanderers graced football pitches they won the Cup on no fewer than 5 occasions, including the inaugural competition in 1872. Of course, the football world was entirely different in those days and, in actuality, it is impossible to compare Wanderers with modern day clubs However, what they achieved as pioneers of the modern game is without question. In 2009 the club was reborn and now has a thriving men's and women's team playing in local London football.

The first letter of each of the answers spell out the name of a man who cut his playing and managerial teeth in non-league football at Dunstable Town, Bedford Town and Barnet. Now a Director of Football for a Football League team, he once featured in a documentary named after him, 'There's Only One.......'. (5,3).

1. North-East town that has two Northern league clubs, Town and Synthonia.
2. Former Leicester City, Arsenal and England striker Alan Smith started his career with this Worcestershire club.
3. Haverhill, Barton, Godmanchester, Willand, Atherton Laburnum, Baffin Milton.
4. Nickname of East Thurrock United and Bognor Regis Town
5. Cambridgeshire club, known as the Cuckoos, who were briefly managed by journeyman Ian Benjamin.

6. It's not easy to name a club that Steve Claridge has not played for over his long career, but which South coast non-league side did he start out at in 1983?
7. Football club based in Birmingham who sound more like one of the founders of the city of Rome.
8.One of the original non-league FA Cup giant-killers. This team made a name for themselves in the 1948-49 season when they defeated Sunderland 2-1 on their famous sloping pitch.



​
Answers : 1. Billingham, 2. Alvechurch, 3. Rovers, 4. Rocks, 5. Yaxley, 6. Fareham Town,7.  Romulus, 8. Yeovil Town
Barry Fry

Can you work out which club is being described in the clues? All answers relate to current Step 5 teams (2019-20 season).

1. Originally, we were known as Axwell Park Colliery Welfare and played in the Derwent Valley League. Our golden era was in the late 70s and early 80s when we won the Wearside League and won the FA Vase in 1981. We now back in the Northern League Division One after two decades in Step 6.
2. Founded by the Sikh community in 1991, we began life as a Sunday league team in the Walsall and District League. Our first team now play in the Midland Premier League and we also have a thriving women’s and junior set-up as well as being known for the quality of our Punjabi cuisine.
3. We were founded in 1946, formed from the merger of Sudbury Rangers and the interestingly named Sudbury Ratepayers. David Seaman was once hired as our goalkeeping coach. Our ground was used as a training base by England during the 1966 World Cup.
4. Formed in 1872, we were founder members of the Bristol & District League (now known as the Western League). Although we have played in several local leagues, we are back in the Western League these days. In the 2005-06 season we had former Bristol Rovers and Liverpool defender Nick Tanner as our manager.
5. Founder members of the Bedfordshire FA, we can name all manner of famous players amongst our ranks including Jeff Astle, Kerry Dixon, and George Best (on loan). We were also the first club to be managed by Barry Fry, who also played for us in the early 1970’s. After seven seasons at Step 4 we are now back in the Spartan South Midlands League.
6. Formed three years before the end of the 19th Century, we were founder member so the Norfolk & Suffolk Senior League, which we went on to win three times. We currently play in the Eastern Counties League Premier Division. Known as The Bloaters we play our games in front of a superb Victorian grandstand that attracts groundhoppers from all over the country.
7. Not many teams can claim a future Prime Minister amongst their list of former players. However, this club, currently in the Wessex Premier League, can boast Clement Atlee as a former player, albeit well before he became leader of the country.
8. Another Midland Premier League side. This team’s former player and manager list is almost a who’s who of football. On the player side there is David Nish, Ernie Moss, Terry Hennessey, Julian Joachim and Jeff Blockley amongst others. Martin O’Neill was manager of the side in 1989.
9. This club has two nicknames, the lesser known of the two being The Trickies. Although they now play in the North West Counties Premier League, they can boast that they were founder members of the English Second Division in 1892. They can also lay claim to a European Cup winner in their ranks when Bruce Grobbelaar played one game for the club in 1999
10. This Northamptonshire club, although originally formed in 1867 resigned from the league in 2002 but were resurrected when a group of friends decided to get the club going again. They put together a team of people, including Snooker World Champion Peter Ebdon (who now has a stand named after him) and started again in local football, regaining their Step 5 status in 2006.

​As the 2017-18 Reading Sunday League season entered the final run-in early in 2018 one club, Caversham United, looked to be in dire straits. Winless, bottom of Division Four, struggling to raise a team some weeks, and on the verge of folding. Things were not looking good at all.
However, a group of friends decided that they should attempt to breathe some life back into the cub and give one last shot. So began a quite remarkable turnaround. The club managed to avoid a completely winless season, and, during the Summer break, rebuilt their depleted squad. With the new season just underway, work started on building the ‘new’ Caversham United. Led by player and Chairman Paul Gutteridge, they embarked on a social media campaign, centred on the Twitter platform, creating online polls to give the club a nickname and suggest the design of a new badge. The focus of this early venture into social media was around the location of the club, the locally famous bridge into Caversham and the goats on the Reading coat of arms. This helped to give the club an identity and raise some local awareness. The Billy Goats, as the new nickname determined, together with their Caversham Bridge badge, gained a ripple of attention locally, including local media, and a renewed vigour which began to show through results on the pitch.
The next move came when the club teamed up with Ireland-based, online football kit and memorabilia entrepreneurs fooballkitbox.com, to begin a competition to design a new kit for the club. This was an incredibly successful move with hundreds of kit designs being submitted, gaining more followers and recognition for both the club and for footballkitbox.com.
The club continued to improve on the pitch, reaching a cup semi-final and, adorned in their wonderful new kit, attaining promotion by means of a second-place finish. The Twitter following of the club was now well over 3,000 and included a host of professional clubs from around the world, such as AS Roma and 1FC Koln (who also have a goat on their badge).
During the Summer, shortly after the announcement that the club had been promoted two divisions and would play in Division Two the following season, they also ran a hugely successful charity cup competition, The Caversham Cup, featuring teams from across the country. The event raised over £2,000 for cancer charity Balls To Cancer.
Their Twitter following is now way above 5,000. They have just completed a second kit design competition with footballkitbox.com for a change strip, have a new ground with better facilities and are most definitely a club on the up. What a turnaround! From almost going out of existence to a double promotion,  thousands of followers from over 100 countries across the globe and two superb new kits all in the space of 18 months. That is the power of social media when used in the right way.
Caversham United FC - @CaverhsamUnited
Footballkitbox.com - @footballkitbox

The first in what may well become a series of articles looking at teams that are no longer with us:
​
Brierley Hill Alliance
I've started this article with this team, defunct since 1981, because they were the first team that I ever saw live.My memory of the match is extremely hazy - I was 3 or maybe 4 at the time - but I do remember that the occasion was Brierley Hill Alliance v Kidderminster Harriers, it was around 1968 or 1969, Kidderminster played in all red, Brierley Hill in all green (I think). The ground at Cottage Street is now a supermarket, but to a small boy like me it was huge and, from memory, almost entirely consisting of rusting corrugated iron sheets.
The club was formed in 1887 after two local sides, Brockmoor Harriers and Brockmoor Pickwicks, merged and apparently, the ground at which I remember seeing them play had been home to the team since 1888-89, which may explain the vast expanses of rusty ironwork. The spent the last 4 years of their existence playing at the Dell Stadium, a short distance from Brierley Hill town centre and, actually, much closer to their original base in Brockmoor.
The clubs' heyday was probably in the 1950's and early 60's when they were recognised as one of the strongest non-league sides in the region, won the Birmingham Senior Cup twice and progressed to the 2nd Round of the 1961-62 FA Cup, eventually going down 3-0 at Shrewsbury Town. During this period the club also made a piece of history when they were involved in the first FA Cup match to be played under floodlights, a 4-2 replay defeat at Kidderminster Harriers.

Northampton Spencer
The demise of Northampton Spencer in 2016 was, personally, a sad occasion. I only visited the Kingsthorpe Mill ground once, but I found it to be a wonderful setting for non-league football and I immediately took a great liking to the club.
Formed in 1936 by former members of the Spencer School football team, they took the name Spencer School Old Boys, they joined the United Counties League in 1968 and immediately gained promotion to the Premier Division and moving into Kingsthorpe Mill in 1971. I think it is fair to say that the club never set the footballing world alight with just a single United Counties Premier League title (1991-92) to their name. Although they did finish as runners-up the following season as well as in the 1997-98 season. The never made it out of FA Cup qualifying but did achieve the Fourth Round of the FA Vase in 1987-88, playing eight games before falling 2-1 at Gresley Rovers.
Unfortunately, when long-time Chairman Graham Wrighting decided to call it a day, there was no-one to fill his shoes and the club folded at the end of the 2015-16 season. I am just glad that I managed to see one of their games before it was too late.

Hayes FC
As a former West Bromwich Albion season ticket holder, Hayes FC is a name that I immediately associate with Cyrille Regis, one of The Baggies all time favourites. For it was the West London club that West Brom purchased the striker from in 1977. Probably the best £10,000 that the club ever spent. Of course, the club was later to sign Cyrille's nephew Jason Roberts, who also started his career at Hayes.The club was formed in then early part of the 20th Century as Bolwell Mission, changing to Hayes 20 years later in 1929 nut retaining the nickname The Missioners for their entire existence. Over the years the club achieved a fair amount of success in the non-league/amateur world, twice reaching the Second Round of the FA Cup, reaching the Quarter-Final of the FA Trophy and being beaten finalists in the 1930-31 FA Amateur Cup (the forerunner of the FA Vase).
After three seasons in the Conference South (now National League South) the club merged with another Conference South side, Yeading FC, to form Hayes & Yeading United, now playing in the Southern League Premier Division after being promoted from Step 4 in 2018-19.

Gothic FC
I have included this club in the article purely because, until a few weeks ago, I had never heard the name before and it intrigued me enough to look into them origins of the club. The club was actually formed in 1898 as, as with a lot of early football teams, were a works team, in this case the works team of a company called Laurence, Scott and Electromotors based in Norwich. The company, which got itself off the ground by installing the lighting for the fledgling Colman's Mustard Carrow Works, soon built a new HQ, close to Colman's and was later to become Norwich City's home in Carrow Road. The new factory was called the Gothic Works, hence the name given to the football team. The team had some success in local football, winning the Norfolk & Suffolk League on seven occasions as well as taking the Norfolk Senior Cup three times. They joined the Eastern Counties League in 1963 but never lost their amateur status, which meant that they found it difficult to retain their better players. They almost went out of business at the end of the 1974-75 season but were saved by some local fund-raising. The stay of execution, however, was quite short-lived and at the end of the 1977-78 season the club withdrew from the Eastern Counties League with the intention of continuing lower down the pyramid in the Anglian Combination. This, due to some player restrictions placed on the club was not possible, and they had to drop even lower down, eventually folding after a few more season.The club's Heartsease Lane ground was adopted by Norwich United in 1985 before the Planters moved into the current Plantation Park home.

Bromsgrove Rovers
From humble beginnings to the fringe of the Football League. Bromsgrove Rovers almost had a Roy of the Rovers outcome before their untimely demise in 2010. The club was formed way back in 1885, playing local football in the Studley & District League. They steadily climbed up the pyramid over the next hundred years, finally making the dizzy heights of the Football Conference (National League) at the end of the 1991-92 season. What followed, in that remarkable year, was almost the greatest story ever told in non-league football. Rovers were one of the smallest teams, with one of the smallest budgets in the league but still managed to finish in second place. In truth they weren't as close to a Football League place as it may seem, trailing Champions Wycombe Wanderers by 15 points, but nevertheless it was a unbelievable achievement for the club. Sadly, that was as good as it got and four season later they finished second from bottom and were relegated back to the Southern League. The decline continued with two more relegation in three years, seeing the cub drop into the Midland Alliance. A brief resurgence, with promotion the following season and then again, to the Southern Premier in 2007-09, was swiftly followed by another drop into Step 4 and then, 2 years and a whole heap of financial problems later, the club were thrown out of the Southern League and wound up. A sad end to a club which almost achieved greatness.
On the plus side a new club, Bromsgrove Sporting, has grown out of the ashes of Rovers, inheriting the magnificent Victoria Ground and sporting Rovers' green as their change kit. Sporting have made their way up the league and, at the time of writing, are holding their own in Step 3, a league higher than Rovers were in when they folded. Hopefully, the current administration has learned from the harsh lesson suffered by Rovers.

​Grantham is probably known best for two things, once being voted the most boring town in Britain and for being the hometown of one Margaret Roberts (Thatcher). They also have a pretty decent football team, Grantham Town, known as the Gingerbreads. The origin of this nickname is said to date back to the 18th Century when a local baker was trying to make Grantham Whetstone, a traditional hard biscuit designed for travellers. He mixed up the ingredients and invented a new gingerbread snack which became very popular, and this is where the club gets its nickname.
Strangely, Grantham are not the only team to feature Ginger in their nickname. NPL Division 1 South side Market Drayton Town are known as the Gingerbread Men. Ginger was brought back to the Shropshire area by Clive of India and the bakers of Market Drayton used the spice to create gingerbread in the late 18th century.
 
Heading East from Shropshire we come across Northern Counties East side Clipstone. The club was known as Clipstone Welfare until 2013 when they dropped the Welfare part and became Clipstone FC. At around about the same time they also adopted the nickname The Cobras. Cobras in Nottinghamshire you may ask? Well, somewhat disappointingly, there is nothing too mysterious about this moniker. The club ran a poll to find a new nickname and The Cobras came out on top.
 
Next stop on our whirlwind tour is Lancashire. Lancaster City's nickname, The Dolly Blues, relates to the fact that their kit bore a resemblance to the colour of the popular, early 20th Century, laundry product of the same name. William Edge and Sons manufactured Dolly Blue in their factory near Bolton for over a hundred years. City's social club, just outside their ground, was also known as the Dolly Blue Tavern.
 
Switching from West to East we find Eastern Counties Premier side Fakenham Town, who have a rather unusual nickname, The Ghosts. There are no clues to the name’s origin on the club website or the wiki entry. However, there is a poem written by Suffolk-born poet Robert Bloomfield (1766 - 1823), The Fakenham Ghost, so maybe this is the source of the nickname? Perhaps someone from the club could shed some light on this or perhaps it should stay a mystery?
 
Staying in the East of England, we head north to Norfolk. Swaffham Town get their nickname, The Pedlars, from an old English folk tale. A pedlar from the town dreamt that if he went to London, stood on London Bridge and listened, he would hear joyful news. When he acted upon his dream, to no avail, a local shopkeeper told him to stop being so stupid and return home to look for the treasure that the shopkeeper had dreamt of in the pedlar's own garden. He returns, finds the treasure and uses it to rebuild the local church.
 
As we head West again, towards our ultimate destination in Cornwall, we come across Combined Counties side, Redhill FC. Apart from the rather obvious, given the name of the town and the teams colours, of The Reds they also use the rather interesting Lobsters. This, for a seaside town, would be a reasonable nickname but the town is a good 35 miles from the coast. The name, apparently, comes from a competition to find a new nickname in 1994. However, the nickname can be found in the club’s annals as far back as the twenties when the colour in their red & white shirts would sometimes blend into a pink shade reminiscent of a lobster.
 
A slight detour into South Oxfordshire for our penultimate team, Wantage Town or the Freds as they are known. Freds being short for Alfredians. The ground is also called Alfredian Park and there are many Alfredian references in the town. The reason behind this is that Wantage is the birthplace of King Alfred the Great.
 
Finally, into Cornwall and Newquay AFC, known as The Peppermints. Thanks to the Newquay web administrator we now know that this name originates from 1906 when supporters of the club noticed a resemblance between the club's red and white striped shirts and that of a popular boiled peppermint sweet. Indeed, we are reliably informed that both the team and the sweets were regarded as 'ot stuff!