Emley Association Football Club is a football club based in

Emley, West Yorkshire Emley is a village in West Yorkshire, England, between Huddersfield and Wakefield with a population of 1,497 at the last census (2011) It is east of Huddersfield and west of Wakefield. The village dates from Anglo-Saxon times and is on high gr ...

, England. They are currently members of and play at the Welfare Ground.

History

The original Emley club founded in 1903 had been members of the Yorkshire League and

Northern Counties East League The Northern Counties East Football League is a semi-professional English football league. It has two divisions – Premier Division and Division One – which stand at the ninth and tenth levels of the football pyramid respectively. History T ...

, before winning promotion to the Northern Premier League in 1989. In 2000, new ground grading regulations introduced by the Northern Premier League forced Emley to relocate to Belle Vue in Wakefield, although the reserves continued to play at the Welfare Ground. In 2002 the club was renamed Wakefield & Emley, and when the reserve team was disbanded in 2005, supporters of the original club decided to establish a new club based in Emley under the name A.F.C. Emley. The following year Wakefield & Emley was renamed Wakefield, and remained in the Northern Premier League until disbanding in 2014. The new Emley club joined Division One of the

West Yorkshire League The West Yorkshire Association Football League is a football competition based in Yorkshire, England. It was previously known as the Leeds League until the name change in 1939. Although it is named the ''West Yorkshire'' League, clubs from the ...

for the 2005–06 season. After finishing third in their first season, they were promoted to Division One of the Northern Counties East League. In 2015–16 they finished fourth in Division One, qualifying for the promotion play-offs. After beating Penistone Church 1–0 in the semi-finals, they lost 4–3 on penalties to Bottesford Town in the final after a 1–1 draw. Striker Ashley Flynn finished the season with 73 goals, a league record. In 2016–17 the club finished third, missing out on automatic promotion on goal difference; they went on to lose 3–1 to Penistone Church in the play-off semi-finals. In March 2019 it was announced that the club would be renamed Emley A.F.C. from the 2019–20 season, five years after the original club was dissolved.Pewits to change name to Emley AFC
Northern Counties East League, 19 March 2018 The club were transferred to Division One North of the

North West Counties League The North West Counties Football League is a football league in the North West of England. Since 2019–20, the league has covered the Isle of Man, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cumbria, northern Staffordshire, northern ...

for the 2019–20 season. They were fourth in Division One North with games in hand on two clubs above them by mid-March 2020, but the season was the abandoned due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. They were subsequently transferred back to Division One of the Northern Counties East League for the 2020–21 season and were top of the league when the season was abandoned in February 2021. In May 2021 the club were promoted to the Premier Division based on their results in the two abandoned seasons.

Season-by-season record

Ground

The club plays at the Welfare Ground in Emley. It has a capacity of 2,000, of which 1,000 is covered and 330 seated. The ground is shared with the local cricket club and has three permanent stands; the Warburton End, which consists of a small terrace and uncovered hard standing behind one goal, the Main stand, which has a small uncovered terrace section near the dugouts, as well as housing the clubs offices, changing rooms and sports bar, and the Richard Hirst Stand (also known as The Shed) a low covered terrace behind the other goal. During the football season, a fence is erected along the cricket field side.

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 2007–08, 2010–11, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2021–22 *Best FA Vase performance: Fourth round, 2012–13

References

External links