Historical Football Kits

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Accrington Stanley

Formed 1968

Promoted to League Two 2006

Kit History

Background

Five years after the original Accrington Stanley folded in 1963, a new limited company known Accrington Stanley (1968) Ltd was formed at a meeting held in the Bold Street Working Men’s Club. Although the new club bears the name of its predecessor, it is a separate entity from the “Old Stanley.” Their first manager, Jimmy Hinksman, had the formidable task of building the club up from nothing. Two years later, in 1970, Stanley were admitted to the Lancashire Combination and 620 supporters watched their first competitive match, a 2-0 victory against Formby.

The club spent eight seasons in the Combination during which they were champions twice and won the Combination Cup three times. Problems with the pitch at Stanley’s Crown Ground led to one match being played at Peel Park, home of the previous Stanley club in 1975. Hopes were raised that this arrangement might become permanent but these came to nothing.

In 1982, Stanley became founder members of the North West Counties First Division after £40,000 was spent on improving their pitch. Three years later, the club was promoted to the Northern Premier League (NPL) First Division, a move that required the club to install floodlights. The first crest appeared in 1986, a somewhat nondescript design with the club's name embroidered above. This was replaced in 1989 by the crest of the Borough of Accrington (which is what the original Accrington Stanley used) but with the initials ASFC replacing the town motto. After 2001, the club's name was appeared above it.

In 1991, Stanley were promoted to the NPL Premier Division following the resignation of South Liverpool.

In 1995, manager Eric Whalley took a controlling interest in the club and as chairman he set about a programme of improvements to the ground that continued over the next few seasons, eventually bringing the Crown Ground (now renamed the Interlink Express Stadium) up to Football League standards.

A new crest featuring a rising phoenix was introduced in 1998 but was dropped after the team were relegated.

In 2003 Stanley won the Unibond Premier League (the new name for the NPL) by 16 clear points to take their place in the Nationwide Conference. After two creditable mid-table finishes, Stanley became the third club to have represented the town of Accrington in the Football League after they stormed to the Conference title in 2006 to earn promotion to Coca Cola League Two. By a cruel twist of fate, one of the clubs demoted that season was Oxford United who had replaced the original Accrington Stanley back in 1962.

The spectre of the original Stanley's fate arose during the 2009-10 season when the club faced the threat of a winding up order over £308,000 in unpaid taxes. The new owners launched the Save Our Stanley appeal in September 2009 to raise the outstanding sum in just eight weeks. The fundraising effort included launching a new home strip, which was used for the first time on 24 November.

The following season a new crest was introduced, which placed the traditional crest within a roundel embroidered with the club's name. This appeared only on the black away kit in 2010-11, as the club retained the red and white home strip introduced the previous November (with the old version of the crest).

There appear to have been problems with Stanley's kit supplier during 2013-14 and in the middle of the season new strips, made by Mitre, were introduced.

Success arrived in 2017-18 when Stanley won the League Two title. They were relegated from League One in 2022-23 after finishing next to bottom.

Macron replaced Adidas as technical sponsor in 2023-24 and offered a novel shirt that featured a brick work pattern on the front. Anyone who has spent time in Lancashire will recognise the distinctive dark red, polished Accrington bricks that originated from the Nori Works and were used throughout the county in the late Victorian period. The 2024-25 shirt also celebrated an important part of the town's heritage with a graphic representing the Accrington Pals, a battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment formed of volunteers from the town and surrounding area in the early days of the First World War.

Sources

• (a) kipax.com
• (b) Accrington Stanley FC - Images of Sport (Phil Whalley 2001)
• (c) Accrington Stanley Official Site
• (d) Greger Lindberg
• (e) Ralph Pomeroy
• (f) Ian Trickett
• (g) Craig Fisher
• (h) Keith Ellis
• (i) Nick Bruzon
• (j) Michael Gluck
• (k) Rob Russell
• (l) oldfootballshirts.com
• (m) The Kitman submitted by William Kay

Crests are the property of Accrington Stanley FC. Photograph courtesy of Accrington Stanley FC.