Amersham Town Football Club is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

England. The club are currently members of the and play at Spratleys Meadow.

History

The club was formed in the Crown Hotel at a meeting on 13 October 1890. The meeting was chaired by E. B. Cooper, headmaster of

Dr Challoner's Grammar School Dr Challoner's Grammar School (also known as DCGS, Challoner's Boys or simply Challoner's) is a selective grammar school for boys, with a co-educational Sixth Form, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. It was given academy status in January ...

, who had been recommended to the school by

W. G. Grace William Gilbert Grace (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English Amateur status in first-class cricket, amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He played ...

.A Brief History of Amersham Town
Amersham Town F.C. The club rules were agreed four days later, and the club's first match took place in November, with Amersham losing 2–1 to

Wycombe Marsh Wycombe Marsh is an area of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It lies on the River Wye and the A40 road, approximately south-east of High Wycombe town centre, and approximately north-west of Loudwater. Wycombe Marsh is in the Ryemead wa ...

at Barn Meadow. In 1902–03 they won the Wycombe and District Combination League. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the club were league champions again in 1919–20 and 1920–21. In 1923 they joined Division Two of the

Spartan League The Spartan League was a football league in England covering London and adjacent counties. Established in 1907, it merged with the South Midlands League in 1997 to form the Spartan South Midlands League. History The Spartan League was establish ...

, remaining members until leaving the league in 1929. The club rejoined the league in 1935 and were placed in Division Two West.Spartan League 1934-1955
Non-League Matters Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Amersham did not rejoin the Spartan League for the 1945–46 season. The club later became members of Division Two of the

Great Western Combination The Great Western Combination was a football league in south-central England. History The league was established in 1939, initially as a wartime competition as many other leagues had been abandoned following the outbreak of World War II. Its or ...

in 1949. In 1953 they were founder members of the Hellenic League, winning the inaugural League Cup in 1953–54. The club's reserve team also joined the league in 1956, playing in Division One until 1960. The club finished bottom of the Premier Division in 1961 and would have been relegated to Division One, but switched to the London League for the 1961–62 season. However, after just one season in the London League they returned to the Hellenic League and were placed in Division One. They won Division One in 1962–63, earning promotion to the Premier Division, where they were league champions the following season. After finishing as runners-up in 1964–65 and 1965–66 the club went into decline, and were relegated to Division One B at the end of the 1970–71 season, in which they finished bottom of the Premier Division. In 1972 Amersham switched to the Spartan League, finishing bottom of the table in the following three seasons. In 1975 the league was expanded to two divisions following a merger with the

Metropolitan–London League The Metropolitan–London League was a short-lived football league for clubs in and around London. It was formed in 1971 by a merger of the Greater London League and the Metropolitan League (which had lost several clubs to the Southern League). I ...

and was renamed the London Spartan League. Amersham were placed in Division Two.Spartan League 1955-1983
Non-League Matters After finishing as runners-up in 1979–80 they were promoted to the renamed Premier Division. In 1997 the Spartan League merged with the

South Midlands League The South Midlands League was a association football, football league covering Bedfordshire and some adjoining counties in England. It was founded in 1922 as the Bedfordshire County League and merged with the Spartan League in 1997 to form the ...

to form the Spartan South Midlands League. Placed in the Premier Division South, the club finished second from bottom in 1997–98 and were placed in the Senior Division for the 1998–99 season. The division was renamed Division One prior to the start of the 2001–02 season, in which they finished bottom of the table and were relegated to Division Two. Despite finishing second-from-bottom of Division Two in 2003–04, Amersham were promoted to Division One as the division was short of clubs and they were one of the few in Division Two to have floodlights, a requirement to meet the ground grading criteria. They remained in Division One until a last-place finish in 2014–15 saw them relegated to Division Two. The following season saw them finish twelfth, and although they were initially thought to have been promoted back to Division One due to clubs finishing above them having failed ground grading rules,Amersham Town celebrate promotion – despite finishing 12th!
Get Bucks, 17 June 2016 this was later reversed and the club remained in Division Two. However, after a sixth-place finish in 2016–17 they were promoted to Division One. In

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Amersham finished fourth in Division One, qualifying for the promotion play-offs. However, they were beaten 4–0 by Rugby Borough in the semi-finals. At the end of the season the club were transferred to Division One of the

Combined Counties League The Combined Counties Football League is a regional men's football league in south-eastern England with members in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Jersey, Kent, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and the western half and sou ...

Ground

The club initially played at Barn Meadow, and soon began using the adjacent Eagle pub as a base. In 1920 they moved to Spratleys Meadow, which was leased from the club's first president, Squire Tyrwhitt Drake, for an initial £10 per year. The lease was bought by George Brazil in 1953, with Brazil also becoming club president; the lease was later transferred to the Brazil Trust and runs to 2097. New dressing rooms were opened in 1930s and a new stand built in 1935. During World War II the council used the changing rooms as an emergency mortuary. A clubhouse was added in 1968, with a wooden classroom building purchased from a private school. Floodlights were installed in 1977 and the clubhouse extended in 1983. The Great Storm of 1987 saw the stand blown into the nearby allotments and it was not until 1997 that a new stand was opened by ex-England manager

Graham Taylor Graham Taylor (15 September 1944 – 12 January 2017) was an English football player, manager, pundit and chairman of Watford Football Club. He was the manager of the England national football team from 1990 to 1993, and also managed Lincoln C ...

to replace it. The allotments were later converted into youth team pitches for the club. During the 2006–07 season new changing rooms were built and the slope on the pitch was levelled, with Amersham playing at Beaconsfield SYCOB while Spratleys Meadow was unavailable.

Honours

*Hellenic League **Premier Division champions 1963–64 **Division One champions 1962–63 **League Cup winners 1953–54 *Wycombe and District Combination League **Champions 1902–03, 1919–20, 1920–21 *Berks & Bucks Junior Cup **Winners 1922–23 *Wycombe Challenge Cup **Winners 1923–24 *St Mary's Cup **Winners 1990–91

Records

*Best

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

performance: First qualifying round, 1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70 *Best

FA Vase The Football Association Challenge Vase, usually referred to as the FA Vase, is an annual football competition for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English National League System (or equivalently, tier 9 or 10 of the overall English footbal ...

performance: Third round, 1977–78

References

External links