Club
History
|
| |
| On
2nd January 1894, Mr. GH Barford of Luton Town wrote to all
known clubs in the county, and invited them to a meeting in
the Cowper Arms Coffee Tavern, Luton. The meeting, held on January
16th 1894, was for the purpose of deciding if it were possible
to form a County Association, which became necessary due to
a recent FA stipulation. Nine clubs turned up, a Mr. White and
a Mr. Bull representing Dunstable. A month later the County
Association was formed, with Luton Town, Bedford Town, Markyate
and Dunstable Town still in operation.
From the above information it would appear
that Dunstable Town first saw the light of day in October
1883.
The first annual meeting of the county took
place on August 30th 1894, and was attended by a Mr. Whitbread,
who donated a trophy for competition among the member clubs.
The County Cup was born. There was, it seems, great excitement
among the Dunstable support and members when they drew Luton
Montrose in the first round. Montrose were the top dogs at
the time.
In the build up to the cup match, the Blues,
as they were known even then, defeated Luton Victoria 10-0,
and beat both Wolverton and Leighton 4-0. Early in November
interest in the club was so high that a reserve side was formed.
The kick-off in those pre-floodlight days was 3.30 - impossible
you might think, but during the last war the clocks were altered
by 2 hours, making it the lunar equivalent of 1.30 today.
A packed train of supporters left Dunstable
North and headed for Bury Park for the match. The game was
full of controversy and incident. Thanks to the brilliance
of Mr. A Beasley, Dunstable's outside-left, the Blues were
3-0 up in 20 minutes, and a cup shock was on the cards. The
Montrose side became, it is reported, very rough after the
third goal and Beasley had to retired with a broken arm following
a loutish tackle by a Montrose defender. The injury was attended
to by a doctor who was summoned. The home team pulled one
back near half time.
In the second half the home side continued
to use strong arm tactics against the ten men Dunstable and
soon equalised. Dunstable fought back hard, but couldn't prevent
the home team from scoring the winner.
The Dunstable support, it is reported, were
very unhappy about the referee and tactics employed by Luton
Montrose, who went on to win the first ever Beds Senior Cup.
However, justice was done and Dunstable won the trophy the
following season. It was to be the last time until 1956. Due
to the horrendous conditions in the winter of 1894, no further
play took place until February 1895.
Although detailed history is very sketchy
for the new few years, the club was "re-awakened"
in 1950, when a band of volunteers led by Frank Nicholls,
and encouraged by Town Mayor Alderman Tom Sandland worked
hard to make a field at Kingsway, behind Bagshawe's, into
a football ground good enough to enter the fairly new Metropolitan
League (which included teams such as Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea,
Fulham, and Luton).
Dunstable
enjoyed a relatively safe first season in the Metropolitan
League, finishing 11th in a league of 16 teams. Warning bells
started to sound in the 1951-52 season when the league was
cut to 14 teams, but a good run of form saw Dunstable finishing
10th. With the league returning to 16 teams for the 1952-53
season, Dunstable had a good 7th place finish. The 1956-57
season saw Dunstable reach the first round proper of the FA
Cup, losing 3-1 away at Margate.
|
Dunstable
Town FC annual dinner in the old boardroom
(June 1958)
Dunstable
Town FC Reserves beat Raunds 4-1 in their United
Counties League match
played on the old Kingsway pitch (Feb 7 1959).
Dunstable
Town Reserves left winger Freddie Janes on the
attack in the same match.
|
|
George
Best in the Dunstable changing rooms.
George
Best in action for Dunstable.
|
|
The
first Board of Directors was formed in 1962 by Alderman Wally
Creasey. When the time came to move from Kingsway, an open
field in Brewers Hill was converted into a football club,
and between 1958 and 1962 the facilities were improved greatly.
Wally Creasey and his associates left Luton Town and helped
put Dunstable Town Football Club on the map. Many thousands
of pounds were spent, and many of the players had come straight
from Luton Town's first team, including Terry Kelly, Seamus
Dunne (Manager), Brendan McNally, and many others. When Mr.
Creasey died, the club was named after him, and his widow,
Joyce unveiled the plaque on the main stand naming the ground
Creasey Park.
With the
ever-expanding Metropolitan League size, Dunstable's end-of-season
position got better and better. Whilst records are unclear
as to the final position and results of the majority of games,
the 1964-65 season saw Dunstable promoted to the Southern
League. The notes in 'Bert's Banter' in the 1965-66 programme
in the home match against Dover, however, state 'You must
admit that we have finished off the last year with a flourish,
and looking at the league table this isn't bad for our first
Southern League season, and I am convinced we will be a lot
higher before the end of the season'. Dunstable were to remain
in the Southern League, and climb into the Premier before
long.
Mid-table
finishes, and relegation scrapes (20th out of 22 teams in
1967-68) saw Dunstable battling for their place in the Southern
League Division 1. After finishing 19th out of 20 in the 1970-71
season, the club was moved into the regional division of the
Southern Premier. More bottom of the table finishes saw Dunstable
end the 1972-73 season at the foot of Division 1 North, having
won just 5 games all season, and scoring only 26 goals. Having
finished in the bottom three for six years in a row (as incorrectly
stated in Barry Fry's autobiography), the aforementioned figure
took the reins at Creasey Park as manager. Fry's first two
games in charge pulled in 34 and 42 fans respectively. Dunstable
finished at the foot of the table again, but there were changes
to be made...
Dunstable
had a new owner - Mr. Keith Cheeseman. That name is more than
enough to send shivers down the spine of any knowledgeable
Dunstable Town fan. Sent to prison in 1990 after being hunted
down at his villa on the Costa del Sol by the FBI for laundering
£242million worth of bonds, having previously ruined
Dunstable Town Football Club single-handedly. Many believe
that were it not for Cheeseman's previous involvement with
Dunstable, we'd have a much better standing in the press and
minds of the public than we currently do. Who knows where
we would be now?
Cheeseman
had a lot of money, or so it seemed. He would often leave
blank, signed cheques with Fry, and there were no limits to
the spending. Former West Brom and England striker Jeff Astle
was bought in, and George Best even gave the club £25
out of his own pocket to buy a new set of nets. It was shortly
after that Best agreed to sign for Dunstable in the pre-season
of 1974-75. That season was to see Dunstable promoted back
to the Southern Premier, having scored 105 goals - the same
amount they'd conceded two season earlier. New signing Jeff
Astle was the scorer of 34 of the goals.
|
|
|
|
However,
it seems things were not quite as they seemed, and perhaps
Cheeseman didn't so much have money, but figures. After getting
Dunstable into serious debt with his mis-dealings, the club
was shut down in the 1975-76 season. Dunstable Football Club
was formed to take over the fixtures of Dunstable Town, and
they finished 8th out of 22 in the 1975-76 season. Unfortunately,
due to being a 'new' club, they had to begin the next season
in Division 1 North, where they finished in the bottom three.
The days
of Harold Stew and John Crumley in the Southern League - Southern
Division saw Dunstable linger around mid-table for the duration
of the 1980s and early 1990s. At the end of the 1993-94 season,
the club closed for the second time.
In early
1997, the acquisition of Creasey Park was first negotiated
by Steve Kaye and Darren Croft, to enable Dunstable to again
have a thriving non-league football club. In the summer of
1998, this dream came true, when Darren Croft and Paul Reeves
took over as managers of Dunstable Town Football Club under
Steve Kaye as chairman. The first season was very successful,
and at some points promotion was a very realistic aim. However,
the club finished the season in 5th position, just missing
out on promotion. The South Midlands Division 1, however,
was stormed during the 1999-00 season, with The Blues winning
the title and going unbeaten through the entire season to
gain promotion. The following season was again a promotion
season, finishing 2nd to move into the South Midlands Premier.
This season also saw our record unbeaten run of 51 matches
end in a narrow 1-0 away loss at Tooting & Mitcham in
the FA Vase.
The first
season in the South Midlands Premier saw a 7th place finish.
The team was built upon, and Dunstable Town stormed the league
once again to be crowned Champions and earn promotion into
the Ryman League Division 1 North when Steve Kaye resigned
after seeing a success on the pitch in his years as chairman.
Due to league restructuring, Dunstable were promoted into
the Southern Premier for the 2004-05 season. This was to be
one of the toughest seasons in Dunstable's history. A 6-0
home defeat at the hands of Chippenham on the opening day
of the season saw the start of a very tough battle.
|
|
The
Blues crashed out of the FA Cup in the 2nd qualifying round
at home to AFC Wimbledon in October, followed by a nasty ten
game losing streak, and the loss of joint-manager Darren Croft,
along with a host of talented players saw the Blues' future
looking bleak. However, ex-Chelsea and England legend Kerry
Dixon was drafted in as joint-manager for the ever-present
and truly dedicated Paul Reeves, and Roger Dance became the
new chairman of Dunstable Town Football Club. The club has
avoided its third closure, which it was literally hours away
from. The Blues were eventually relegated to Division One
West and roughly three thousand miles on the road, but the
makings of a good side was there if they could be kept.
2005/06
saw another worrying point for the Blues. Following their
first ever relegation, pre-season saw a large number of players
leave to other local sides. As the first team's season deteriorated,
Gary Worth and Lee Cowley's youth team took the SCYFL Nemean
division by storm, reaching two cup finals and a quarter final
to cap off a remarkable time for the youngsters, although
it'd be unfair to call them the future, as almost a dozen
of them had patched up the first team at various points of
the season. As talented as these teenagers were, they were
unable to prevent a 21st place finish in the Western Division.
The long-serving Paul Reeves tendered his resignation following
a disastrous season which saw large amounts of his work of
the past eight years, go up in smoke.
As the
Regiment prepared to mount an assault on the Spartan South
Midlands League, the FA announced the National Game Constitution,
which to the delight of Towns' fans, saw Dunstable stay at
step 4, moving to the new and vastly more suitable Midland
Division. With the new management of Darren Feighery, new
reserve and youth 'B' sides, The Blues witnessed a fantastic
season which saw the Bedfordshire Senior Cup, Bedfordshire
Premier Cup, Colwyn Cup, Eastern Junior Cup and SCYFL Delphian
division title come to Creasey Park as well as a strong mid-table
finish for the first team.
The following
season saw more success with the Lee Cowley's reserve team
picking up the Suburban League Northern Division in addition
to a League Cup final and League Shield semi-final. The youth
teams also got their hands on silverware with Will McLaughlan's
A team winning a SCFYL division for a third straight season
and Kevin Thoburn's B team winning the Beds County Floodlit
Cup. Both Roger Dance and Darren Feighery exited days after
the end of the season with Pete Burgoyne taking the job as
chairman and Lee Cowley being promoted to first team manager. |
A
new Dunstable, in the 2004 FA Cup home tie with AFC Wimbledon.
A
hopeful crowd await the Wimbledon match.
|
|
The
record breaking Beds Senior Cup winners
The
damage caused by heavy snowfalls
|
|
The
new era got off to a great start off the pitch with thousands
of pounds being spent on ground improvements in the close
season, and a full refurbishment of the social club in November
2008, to go alongside the reported £3.3m redevelopment
of Creasey Park Stadium. Disaster struck over the winter as
the function hall at Creasey Park collapsed, taking with it
a significant chunk of the budget and the boardroom. Cowley
struggled after a good start to the season, highlighted by
a 5-1 win at Canvey Island in the FA Cup, and ultimately resigned
in March with reserve team managers, Mike Locke and Wayne
Roff, taking over temporarily. Mike and Wayne led the team
to a record twelfth Bedfordshire Senior Cup but were unfortunately
relegated from the Southern League.
2009/10
was another stand-out year for the Young Blues as Lee Connelly's
U18s reached the FA Youth Cup 1st round, narrowly losing away
to the MK Dons. The youngsters also won the Colwyn Cup and
finished runners up in the Brian Hitchings Challenge Cup,
and saw a staggering eight youth players selected for first
team duties. The season also became one of consolidation as
Pete Burgoyne attempted to secure the redevelopment of Creasey
Park and a long term successor. His successor was to be the
man who sparked it all off in 1997 - Darren Croft. Attempting
to bring the good times back to Creasey Park, Darren brought
back the legendary Grant Carney as player/manager with Steve
Castleman as assistant manager. 2010/11 promises to be an
exciting time with the new facility due to be completed by
the end of 2010.
From a
bright history, to a bright future - We are the Town! |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
