What Went Wrong?

The sad demise of Trowbridge Town.

Non-League football is littered with clubs who have sadly folded for a variety of reasons.

A lack of finance is the most obvious reason for a club calling it a day, or in some cases, it`s an unscrupulous owner with no real allegiance to the club pulling the rug.

Many of these clubs have come back in different guises, some successfully such as Aldershot Town, Dartford, Maidstone United and Hereford.

Some have tried and failed, such as Trowbridge Town who, remember, made it as far as the Alliance Premier League but spent 37 years as a Southern League club before folding at the end of the 1997/98 season.

The `old` Trowbridge Town club was formed way back in 1880 and were one of the oldest in the South West.

In 1892 they were founder members of the Bristol & District League which basically became the Western League.

One of their most famous players at the turn of the century was goalkeeper Billy George, who turned out for Trowbridge when on leave from the Army before Aston Villa paid £50 to get him out of the forces and join them in 1897.

He went on to play almost 400 times for Villa and was in three title winning sides in 1899, 1900 and 1910 as well as their 1905 FA Cup winning team.

However, he was also in goal when Villa suffered a humiliating FA Cup defeat against Southern League Millwall Athletic in 1900.

He also won three caps for England team in 1902 and was eventually sold to Birmingham City as a player/trainer in 1911.

He was also a good cricketer – good enough to play first class cricket for Warwickshire as well as Minor Counties for Wiltshire and Shropshire.

The start of the Second World War came at a bad time for everyone obviously but came at a time when Trowbridge had turned `professional` and won the Western League Division Two championship in 1938/39, followed by the Western League title in 39/40.

Fortunately, despite losing six years to the war, Trowbridge managed to pick up where it left off, finishing third in 1945/46 and then won the title the nest two seasons, finishing second and then fourth as the decades changed.

Trowbridge continued to fare well in the Western League in the 1950s, although they only managed to win the championship once in 55/56.

Two years later they were elected into the Southern League when they played in the South Eastern Section, while near-neighbours Bath City were in the North Western.

Trowbridge`s finished 13th out of 17 in their first campaign at the higher level but they managed eighth the following season – the first season of the First Division.

However, after that they struggled to move above lower mid-table.

In the halcyon days just after the war, crowds flocked to any football match – hundreds could be seen watching a kickabout in a park!

Apart from their Western League successes at the time, Trowbridge also enjoyed some good FA Cup runs, reaching the First Round against Exeter City in 1945/46.

That season, as there were not as many in the competition, the First Round was played over two legs and a crowd of 4,300 saw Trowbridge lose 3-1 at Frome Road and then 7-2 at St James`s Park in front of just under 7,000 to bow out 10-3 on aggregate.

They reached the First Round again in 47/48 when they were paired with Third Division South side Brighton & Hove Albion at home.

The cup was now back to a straight knockout competition but included extra-time at the end of 90 minutes in the initial game.

And Trowbridge forced Brighton to a replay after 120 minutes in front of a record Frome Road crowd of 6,739, which easily beat the Trowbridge ground record of 5,450 for the Western League match against Poole Town on Good Friday 1947.

Gate receipts were also a club record, totalling £636 and 9 shillings!

Cyril Greenland`s goal earned a Goldstone Ground replay in which Brighton secured a comfortable 5-0 win in front of 11,700.

Crowds of these proportions rapidly disappeared from Frome Road and Trowbridge became one of the worst supported teams in the Southern League, despite possessing a flourishing supporters association.

The club owed its original main stand to Colonel Llewellyn Palmer, a stalwart supporter, who presented the stand to the club as a memorial to his son who was killed in action during the First World War.

During the 1960s, there were talks that Trowbridge would become a `nursery` club for Second Division Swindon Town, but it never materialised in the end.

Trowbridge struggled in the Southern League in the 1960s in the main - their best-place finish being sixth in 1969/70.

They did have one or two characters in the team in the 60s though, including 'Cannonball` Charlie Fleming.

Fleming began his career with East Fife and became an integral part of their successes in the 1940s and 1950s.

Fleming won the League Cup with East Fife in 1949 and 1953 and was part of the side that reached the 1950 Scottish Cup Final.

During his time with East Fife, he won his only international cap, scoring twice for Scotland in a 3–1 win against Northern Ireland in October 1953 at Windsor Park – the match counting for both the 1953/54 British Home Championship and 1954 FIFA World Cup qualification.

He moved to English club Sunderland in January 1955 for £20,000 where he remained for three seasons.

After another 71 goals in just 122 games, Fleming made the surprise move to Bath in July 1958 with City taking advantage of the maximum wage rule not applying to non-League football, although they did have to find £10,000 to lure him away from Roker Park.

He scored an incredible 48 goals during his first season with Bath, falling just one short of this amount the next year but leading City to their first-ever Southern League title.

The goals continued to flow and by the time he left the club to become player-manager at Trowbridge in 1965, he had scored 216 goals in just 300 games.

He went on to coach and manage in Canada, Australia and the USA before retiring back to Fife in Scotland.

The 1970s saw mixed fortunes until near the end of the decade when they had finishing positions of eighth, seventh and ninth.

For season 1979/80, with the introduction of the Alliance Premier League, the Southern League were reduced to two divisions and Trowbridge were placed in the Midland Division where they had plenty of derby games.

The switch of divisions paid off as, after a ninth-place finish in 79/80, the club enjoyed their most successful seasons for many years when, under the guidance of former Chelsea and Leicester City midfielder Alan Birchenall as player-manager, the club finished third and became one of eight new clubs in the Alliance Premier League for 1981/82.

So, now Trowbridge were just one step (or vote!) from the Football League – a far cry from the Bristol & District League.

But they lasted just three seasons at the top of the non-League Pyramid as Birchenall departed.

Back in the Southern Premier Division, ex-Birmingham City, Bradford City and Crewe Alexandra goalkeeper Steve Smith stepped into the breach as player-manager.

However, they fell straight through the Premier Division and back into the Southern section in 84/85, losing six successive league games at the end of the campaign to finish second-from-bottom, but just a point behind third-bottom Gloucester City.

In February 1987, Trowbridge appointed former Sheffield Wednesday, Hull City and Blackburn Rovers defender Ken Knighton as manager.

After retiring as a player following over 350 League appearances, Knighton managed Sunderland, where he achieved promotion to the top-flight with Frank Clark as his assistant, Leyton Orient and then Dagenham in the Alliance Premier League.

He had moved to live near Bristol after being asked by Plessey Telecommunications in 1986 to set a sales team up in the city.

When he took over at Frome Road, Trowbridge had been switched to the Midland Division and finished 16th before being moved back to the southern section the following season.

Knighton left and went on to manage Portishead in the Somerset Senior League.

During the 1988/89 season, the club appointed John Murphy as manager and, having finished tenth in his first season in charge, the former Cheltenham Town boss set about changing Trowbridge`s fortunes.

This he did, gaining promotion back to the Premier Division in 1990/91 when a remarkable run from January 1991 when they lost only two league games.

Unfortunately, they lost 3-2 on aggregate to Guiseley in the semi-finals of the FA Vase during that period.

Murphy consolidated Trowbridge in the Premier Division with finishes of seventh, fifth and seventh.

Following his move to Gloucester City during the close season of 1994/95, Trowbridge appointed ex-Yeovil Town boss Steve Rutter as player-manager and he set about the difficult task of re-building the squad, having lost eleven of the previous group who all followed Murphy to the Tigers.

Despite possessing an experienced defence with Rutter alongside his former Yeovil team-mate Paul Thorpe, Trowbridge struggled and finished second-from-bottom, some 16 points adrift of the safety-mark.

Trowbridge finished ninth in their first season back in the South Division but after Rutter left, they ended up in 18th and 15th positions.

By now their Frome Road ground had been sold for housing and they ground-shared at Bath City`s Twerton Park.

But attendances were very poor, and the club eventually ran out of money and folded in 1998.

However, Trowbridge Town AFC was quickly re-formed in the summer of 1998 by supporters, saddened by the end of their club.

The first year saw the club with no team and no ground but a lot of time and effort put in by supporters of the resulted in finances being raised and a partner arrangement being agreed with Trowbridge Town Youth to share their Woodmarsh facilities.

The club joined the Wiltshire County League for the 1999/00 season, winning the County Intermediate League at the first attempt and promotion to the Premier Division of the County Senior League.

Consistent performances were achieved in the league with the club reaching the final of both the County Senior Cup and League Knockout Cup in two successive seasons.

The club completed the Wiltshire League Championship and Wilts Senior Cup `double` in 2003/04 and, together with ground improvements during the summer, brought the reward of a place in the Hellenic League.

Runners-up spot in Division One West of the Hellenic League was achieved at the first attempt, but promotion could not be taken due to ground requirements - something which was unfortunately repeated again two years later when runners-up was attained for a second time.

Since the club’s reformation the emphasis has been placed on running a member’s club that keeps itself financially sound.

The emphasis on the playing side has been based on young players from the local areas and the club has always had a strong link with Trowbridge Town Youth and the two clubs formally merged in June 2008.

Trowbridge Town Youth was one of the most successful youth football clubs in the county for a number of years and many of their players and coaches have progressed to play or manage the senior side.

Initially the membership total and average attendances at home matches were the envy of many other clubs higher up the non-League Pyramid as the new Trowbridge club sought to return to the former glories of its predecessor.

However, with the ground at Woodmarsh requiring quite a bit of work to enable further progress back up the Pyramid, the momentum stalled.

Trowbridge were relegated back to the Wiltshire League at the end of season 2011/12 having finished bottom of the Hellenic.

The return to County League football initially saw an upturn in the club’s results and, improving each season, saw them crowned champions of the Premier Division in 2015/16.

However, they were not promoted back up the pyramid as plans and work to develop the facilities and Woodmarsh were not progressing as required.

Season 2016/17 they finished fifth in the Wiltshire League, but the following season saw them drop to 12th spot.

Whilst never really in the title race in 2018/19 they finished in sixth spot they ended the season with an impressive 14-game unbeaten run.

Sadly, with support dwindling to virtually nothing and resistance by locals to allow development to the ground, progress looks bleak, unless they can find somewhere else to play and build a ground suitable to progress in the non-League Pyramid.