Cadbury Athletic Football Club is an amateur

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

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, England. Affiliated with the

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...

confectionery company and playing in the company colours of purple and white, they are currently members of the and play at the Cadbury Recreation Ground in

Bournville Bournville () is a model village on the southwest side of Birmingham, England, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family for employees at its Cadbury's factory, and designed to be a "garden" (or "model") village where the sale of alcohol was forbidd ...

History

The club was established in 1994,Mike Williams & Tony Williams (2016) ''Non-League Club Directory 2017'', Tony Williams Publications, p437 and were admitted to Division Three of the

Midland Combination The Midland Football Combination was an English football league covering parts of the West Midlands. It comprised five divisions, a Premier Division, Divisions One and Two and two Reserves Divisions. The league was one of three official feeder le ...

. Despite finishing ninth in their first season, they were promoted to Division Two. In 2000–01 a fourth-place finish was enough to secure promotion to Division One, with the club also winning the league's Challenge Vase. They were Division One runners-up in 2004–05, earning promotion to the Premier Division. Despite finishing twelfth in the Premier Division in 2011–12, Cadbury Athletic resigned from the division and dropped into Division One. They were Division One champions in 2013–14, the last season before the league merged with the Midland Alliance to form the Midland League, with Cadbury Athletic placed in Division One. The club resigned from Division One at the end of the 2020–21 season and dropped into Division Two. The following season saw them win the Division Two title and the Birmingham Saturday Vase with a 4-0 victory over Tipton Town in the final.

Ground

The club originally played at the Cadbury Recreation Ground at the Cadbury factory in

. Due to the lack of floodlights, the first team moved to Pilkington XXX's Triplex Sports Ground in Kings Norton,Pilkington XXX
Pyramid Passion and then Alvechurch's Lye Meadow ground, before returning to the Triplex Ground. The Triplex Ground was originally developed by Richmond Swifts. Levelling work between 1956 and 1958 led to banking being created on three sides of the pitch, with the fourth side left open for use as a cricket oval. A stand was built on the railway side of the pitch the mid-1990s, but Richmond left the ground after being unable to obtain planning permission to install floodlights. The ground was later taken over by Pilkington XXX, who were able to install floodlights. After dropping into Division Two of the Midland League in 2021, the club returned to the Cadbury Recreation Ground.

Players

Several former youth players at Cadbury Athletic have gone on to play professional football, including

Rico Henry Rico Antonio Henry (born 8 July 1997) is an English professional footballer who plays as a left-back for club Brentford. He is a product of the Walsall academy and represented England at U19 and U20 level. Club career Walsall After a spell wi ...

Ryan Burge Ryan Burge may refer to: *Ryan Burge (footballer) Ryan James Burge (born 12 October 1988) is an English former Association football, footballer who played as a midfielder in the English Football League and National League (division), National ...

Demarai Gray Demarai Remelle Gray (born 28 June 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Everton. Gray came through the youth system of Birmingham City, for whom he made his Football League debut as a 17-year-old in Oct ...

Corey O'Keeffe Corey James John O'Keeffe (born 5 June 1998) is a professional footballer who plays as a full back or midfielder for club Forest Green Rovers. O'Keeffe began his career with Birmingham City, made his senior debut in 2016, and spent time on lo ...

and Daniel Sturridge.Birmingham City: Who is Corey O’Keeffe? Lowdown on Blues teenager who could feature against Newcastle United
Birmingham Mail, 10 December 2016

Honours

*Midland League **Division Two champions 2021–22 * Birmingham Saturday Vase **Winners 2021-22 *Midland Combination **Division One champions 2013–14 **Challenge Vase winners 2000–01

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: Preliminary round, 2015–16 *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: Fourth round, 2018–19

References

External links

* {{coord, 52.427497, N, 1.933958, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Football clubs in England Football clubs in Birmingham, West Midlands Football clubs in the West Midlands (county) Association football clubs established in 1994 1994 establishments in England Cadbury Midland Football Combination Midland Football League Works association football teams in England