Look into Histories 210

When a very successful club implodes and shuts up shop it is quite a blow and that was the case the case of Colne Dynamoes whose owner called it a day in July 1990. This story is testament to the days when grading of grounds appeared to take second place
to inflated players wages.

Colne Dynamoes were formed in 1963 by Graham White and a few friends and joined the Nelson & Colne League before moving up to the Burnley Combination in 1967-68.

Having performed the double for two seasons the next move was to the West Lancashire League and another double so the Lancashire Combination was next in 1975-76.

After six years of more success, the North West Counties League was formed in 1982-83 and Colne were placed in the Third Division due to low ground grading so they built new dressing rooms and made other improvements but safe to say that their picturesque Holt House Ground was then improved beyond recognition with Floodlights in 1985 and a 200 seat stand.

Their best season was 1987-88 when they won the F A Vase beating Emley at Wembley 1-0. This, together with promotion found them in the HFS Loans League in 1988-89, their Silver Jubilee season and more triumph winning the Division One Championship.

Money then appeared to be no object with players like Liverpool’s Alan Kennedy coming on board.

Our Match Programme for this story is the FA Trophy semi-final first leg against Barrow on 7 th April 1990 and is an excellent production for 50p with usual notes, full visitor information on club and players, all results and scorers, the club history (which I used for this article), league tables for first team and Reserves in the West Lancashire Div 1 showing the club to be Champions at both levels. The game was the record
attendance for the club of 2,150 but one got a sense of foreboding in the Managers notes saying it “will probably be the last big game ever played on the playing field where it all started ? “. The result was a 1-0 win for Barrow who went on to Wembley to
win the F A Trophy.

With so much success under their belt it came a great shock to their millionaire chairman-manager when denied promotion to the Conference due to ground grading.

He tried to arrange a share with Burnley and even planned a new ground near Nelson but too little too late.

As season 1990-91 came, Colne played a pre season friendly with Newcastle Blue Star the on the Monday morning the players were informed the club was folding and that was that.

Six years after the Colne Dynamoes collapse, a new club, Colne were formed, playing at Holt House joining Division Two of the North West Counties League earning promotion to the Northern Premier but in 2022/23 were relegated back to the NWC League.