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. 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 The Midland Football Alliance was an English association football league for semi-professional teams. It covered Leicestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and also southern parts of Derbyshire and Not ...

to form the

Midland League The Midland Football League is an English football league that was founded in 2014 by the merger of the former Midland Alliance and Midland Combination. The league has four divisions that sit at levels 9–12 of the football pyramid. History Th ...

, 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 Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of Birmingham, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the Government of Birmingham, England. The district lies 6.5 miles south-southwes ...

,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, Ryan Burge,

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 and

Daniel Sturridge Daniel Andre Sturridge (; born 1 September 1989) is an English professional footballer who last played as a striker. As well as representing England, he has played in the Premier League for Manchester City, Chelsea, Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool ...

.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