Yesterday marked a landmark moment in football history as Accrington Stanley Associated Football Club played their first match in the national Football League for the first time in 44 years.

Accrington is a mill town in Lancashire, north west England with a population of 35,000 people. The football team started in 1891 as Stanley Villa later adopting the town name to become Accrington Stanley FC following the demise of another local team called Accrington FC – one of the founder 12 clubs of the football league which had fallen into financial problems and resigned in 1892. The two clubs should not be confused.

Accrington Stanley entered the league in 1921, playing in the newly founded 3rd division.
But in 1960 things were not doing well as the club was relegated to what was now the 4th division. On top of this, it transpired that they had not been looking after their finances. Initially it was found they owed £4000 in unpaid transfer fees and approximately £4000 to the Inland Revenue in taxes. Further investigation in 1962 revealed that they had a further £40,458 of debts to various creditors. This is probably the equivalence of millions in modern money.

For a club of Stanley’s size, they could not pay off the debts, so following the board’s resignation, the club was declared bankrupt leading to the receivers stepping in. On 11 May 1962 the club sent a letter of resignation to the football league midway through the 1961/62 season. The administrator of the club refused to allow anyone to bail the club out so the company went under.

They continued to play in the Lancashire Combination League Division Two, and while they were promoted to division one in 1964 they were relegated back down for the next season and the club chose to resign and folded.

For 4 years between 1966 and 1970 there was no Accrington Stanley at all, but in October 1968 talks began and investors came in to enable a newly formed Accrington Stanley FC club to buy a ground. They rejoined the Lancashire Combination League and over the next 32 years clawed their way up through the Cheshire County Division, the North West Counties Division, the Northern Premier League. They struggled here between 1987 and 1999 unable to progress. But in 2002/3 they were promoted to the Conference Division – the league below the National Football League

In 2003/4 and 2004/5 they finished 10th in the Conference, but last year in 2005/6 they finished top to enable them to be promoted into what is now called League two of the Football League (it’s what was previously Division 4 of the old Football league).

Yesterday on 5th August 2006, they played their first match – they may have lost 2-0 to Chester City but they are back

Oddly though, this is not the reason why many of my generation in the UK will have heard of Accrington Stanley. Most will have heard the name from the Advert encouraging children to drink more milk broadcast in 1989. This is not the full advert because i couldn’t find anything more than this, but the important part of the dialogue is there. I’m not sure if i really ever understood what the kid was trying to say in the advert.

Another club that has been in a similar situation to Accrington Stanley more recently is the Italian Club ACF Fiorentina. Founded in 1926, but went bankrupt in 2002. A new club was established under the name Fiorentina Viola. ACF Fiorentina was in the italian Serie A; Fiorentina Viola was allowed entry to Serie C2 which is the 4th tier of italian football. Their progress was more rapid due to a shakeup in the league system and having finished top of C2, skipped over C1 and went straight into Serie B. Upon doing this they were allowed to use their old name and returned to using the original colours. They returned to Serie A in 2005-6 but it doesn’t end there. The next season the club was involved in the 2006 match fixing scandal that threatened to have them demoted. Their final punishment was that they would be deducted 19 points for the 2006-7 season