Accrington ready to be more than name from the past

Accrington Stanley were one of the most venerable names in the Football League until they resigned in 1962. Now they are poised for their return to the League. Ian Herbert reports

They are one of football's oldest clubs, founder members of the Football League and custodians of one of the sport's most tumultuous histories, but all anyone seems to remember is the milk ad.

It was in the 1980s that a young Scouser told his mate, as they stood next to a fridge in their Liverpool kits, of Ian Rush's warning that "if I don't drink enough milk, when I grow up, I'm only gonna be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley."

"Accrington Stanley? Who are they?" asked the mate.

"Exactly."

The club were suddenly assigned a place in football legend, as became clear when the South African cricketer Allan Donald pitched up for a sportsman's dinner at their ground during his season as a pro at nearby Rishden CC, a few years back. He began his speech by suggesting the audience swap their Thwaites for a glass of the white stuff.

But the mirth may not last much longer. Nearly half a century after they tumbled out of the League as the first professional side too broke to fulfil their fixtures, Stanley stand 13 points clear at the top of the Nationwide Conference and in touching distance of ending their 44-year exile.

It was on the evening of 5 March 1962 that Accrington's four remaining directors, saddled with £56,0000 debt, gave up the ghost. They only needed to pay up £4,000 immediately but, flat broke and unable to pay the players to turn out in the next match at home to Crewe, they composed a resignation letter to the League. A man subsequently walked into the club's office with a bag containing £10,000 cash inside and told the club to pay it back, interest free, whenever they could manage it. But it was too late. Seven days after the letter was sent, the Football League's Alan Hardacre refused the club's request that it be rescinded.

Eric Whalley, who played twice for Accrington reserves, managed the club's resurgent 1980s side and joined the board before finally buying the club for £80,000 in 1995, has had his share of reminders about the club's lost glories during those wilderness years. Few are more vivid than the day he took the team into a café before a match at Boston United. "You see Jimmy," a father told his son. "I told you there was an Accrington Stanley."

"You might say that the legend has helped us in its own way," said Whalley, who has made his money from packaging, waste management and the manufacture of horse bedding. "It's given us a name, at least."

His mission since buying the club has been to make some hard cash out of that. When an insurance company tried to get in on the Milk Marketing Board's act a few years ago by advertising its values with the line "You wouldn't expect Michael Owen to play for Accrington Stanley," Whalley had his solicitors fire a letter off and picked up a few hundred pounds for his trouble.

It was the same when developers decided to build an estate called Stanley Park on the site of the club's old Peel Park stadium. "They were cashing in on the name of the club," said Whalley. "Everyone remembers the funny name so one of the first things I did when I started here was to patent it." Anything that can be shifted now sells from the club shop, from beach towels and to mugs bearing the words "Accrington Stanley - We Are They". Stanley must also be one of the few British clubs that flog their own branded Merlot.

Stanley (the name belongs to plain old Accrington FC's merger in 1893 with Stanley Villa, a club formed at the Stanley Arms and which played at Stanley Street) then discovered more lucrative assets, in the form of Brett Ormerod, who was signed on a £40-a-week contract after Kenny Dalglish had released him from Blackburn and sold for £50,000 to Blackpool. A sell-on clause in his contract meant that his £1m move to Southampton in 2001 netted the club a further £250,000. "That stand out there ought to be called the Brett Ormerod stand, by rights," said Whalley. "He paid for it."

Whalley made his aspirations clear last season, 12 months after the club's arrival in the Conference, when he took the players full time at a cost of £130,000 a season. "You either want to make it to the Football League or you don't," he said. "If not, why bother being in this league at all?"

The side's meteoric rise this season has prompted speculation that Whalley is ploughing a fortune into the club though Whalley, a gruff 65-year-old Accringtonian who has not quite got around to finding a full-time groundsman to replace his last one, does not exude the aura of a high roller. "Alan Brazil said the other day that someone's pouring money in here but if that's so I'd like to know who the hell that is," said Whalley, gazing across his modest 4,500-capacity stadium which will need another stand should the club go up. "We just don't carry any debt. We just set a budget each year and try to stick to it. No one in this league has been allowed to spend over 60 per cent of their income."

His manager, John Coleman, who says his wage bill is down 35 per cent this season, is inclined to agree. Though Exeter and Stevenage - Stanley's two prime challengers - might exude more wealth, Coleman is the only Conference boss to boast an international captain. The French-born Romuald Boco, signed from the French side Niort, has 14 international caps for Benin, having made his international debut at 18, though he started the first dozen games of the season on the bench for Stanley.

The name you are more likely to find ringing around Stanley's Interlink Express Stadium belongs to a more quintessential Accringtonian: Paul Mullin, released by Stanley as a youth player but re-signed from a local league for £10,000 and player of the year here for four of the last five seasons. They have not known a player like him since the legendary George Stewart - sold to Coventry for £3,500 after scoring 136 times in 182 games in the 1950s.

The other popular current chant is "We're top of the league and we're having a laugh", though the chairman is struggling to share the sentiment. "We're getting to the point now where it's frightening," he said after emerging from a meeting with the bank to discuss the costs of building a police control room and seating for away fans - which the Football League has already indicated that Stanley will need in the event of promotion. "The closer we get, the more stressful it gets."

The agonies may only just be starting. Whalley estimates that Stanley will need crowds of 2,500-3,000 if they are to survive in the League and his disgruntlement with average gates of 1,700 in this extraordinary season has been well chronicled in Lancashire. "All the clubs in the top half of the Conference get more fans than we do. I've asked the fans do they really want to be in the Football League," he complained. The town's location, five miles from both Blackburn and Burnley, has hardly helped.

Whalley, who first ran out for Stanley in 1958 as a 17-year-old in the third team, has seen it all before. It was in the same year that Blackburn Rovers, back in the First Division, started drawing support away from Stanley, despite the latter's appearance in the last 32 of the FA Cup. Back then, just as they have this season, the club experimented with Friday night matches.

The anoraks also talk about 1893, when Accrington also resigned from the League through lack of cash, and 1930 when they nearly did so again amid the Great Depression. When the club finally capitulated in 1962 the Football League Review carried an image of its ground in its decaying state. "Remember what happened to Accrington - don't let the grass grow under your club," read the headline.

But for now, though, the club can only look up. Victories against Hereford United and Stevenage Borough after the visit to Crawley today, would all but confirm promotion.

In the club's entire 44-year exile they have been relegated only once (to the Northern Premier League First Division, six years ago) and that says something about the spirit. "We believe we have a future, not just a past," said Whalley. "We think we can do it."