A Look Into Histories

A LOOK INTO HISTORY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY

WORKINGTON’S FINAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE GAME

My apologies for any repeat of History 61 but that included a final season Home programme v Southend United, this story relates to their last ever game in the Football League, a Division four game at Newport County.

Workington AFC were elected into the Football League Division Three North at the start of season 1951-52 when New Brighton were voted out and were placed in Division Four when the change came to the divisions in 1958. With continuing lack of success, a bright light shone when they were promoted to Division Three for the 1964-65 season, having secured 59 points and a 9-1 League Cup victory over Barrow. They continued to have a good run in the Football League Cup reaching the 5th Round having beaten Scunthorpe United 1-0 away, First Division Blackburn Rovers 5 1 in a replay (their finest win in history against a club with five Internationals) after a 0-0 draw and Norwich 3-0 but eventual winners, Chelsea were just too good even though they drew 2-2 at Borough Park but lost the replay, 0-2 at Stamford Bridge.

The “Reds” secured their highest ever league position in season 1965-66, 5th behind winners Hull City. Season 1966-67 was not a happy one and they were relegated back to Division Four in 1967 in the year that QPR were promoted. In was in that division that Workington AFC continued their rather chequered existence until May 17th 1977 when they lost 0 1 at Newport County and were not re-elected in the summer with Wimbledon FC taking their place.

This was the penultimate season before re-election was changed for promotion/relegation. Workington would be the second last to be relegated by a re-election process.

With the present stadium only capable of holding 3,101 the ground record of 21,500 against Manchester United in an FA Third Round F A Cup tie just one month before the Munich tragedy is historically safe.

Our Match Programme is for the clubs last ever Football League game, on 17th May 1977 at Newport County. It was a game that had meant to be played on 18th December 1976 but bad weather cancelled same. The landscape A5 called the Blue Note also conveyed the message on the front cover, “ The Somerton Theatre presents :- The Great Escape”
History tells us that Newport won 1-0 and avoided the drop but not so Workington who had been last for most of the season, were 6 points adrift at the end and were now seeking re-election for the third season running but lost out to Wimbledon, champions of the Southern League in which Minehead were runners up. The Dons got 27 votes to the Reds 21. The Programme was filled with fascination information, excellent detail on Workington though mentioning that they were “ doomed” all results, scorers and Reserves in the Welsh League.

Relegated to the Northern Premier League they continued to struggle and were relegated again to the North West Counties League in 1998 to return to the Northern Premier League and in 1999 had to win their last 14 games to be champions and they did it. In 2005 they were promoted to the Conference North where they achieved 3rd place in 2007.

The ups and downs of Workington AFC brought one little gem to my notice bearing in mind they had once been a Football League club and that was in 1998-99 when they reached the 6th Round of the F A Vase losing 1-0 aet at Bedlington Terriers who were then beaten 1-0 by Tiverton in the Final. When the 2019-20 season was declared Void, they were top of the Northern Premier League North west Division 10 points ahead !.

Finally, the reason why they are called Workington AFC is because the town has a Rugby League club called Workington Town.