Darwen Football Club is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club from

Darwen Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road, A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The club was formed in 2009 as A.F.C. Darwen, a successor to the original Darwen club, which had been wound up. They currently play in the and are based at the Anchor Ground.

History

On 22 December 2003, Carlsberg Tetley tried to wind up Darwen Football and Social Club. Although the club, then playing in Division One of the North West Counties League, avoided liquidation on that occasion, another winding up petition was brought by The Bee radio station on 14 April 2008 in respect of £8,000 owed for advertising. Plans were made for

Blackburn with Darwen Blackburn with Darwen is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Lancashire, North West England. The borough includes the towns of Blackburn and Darwen plus a wider rural area which includes the villages of ...

Council to buy the Anchor Ground. However, following two further petitions for liquidation brought by

Thwaites Brewery Thwaites Brewery is a regional brewery established in 1807 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England by founder Daniel Thwaites. Now located near Mellor, Lancashire, Mellor in the Ribble Valley, part of the company was sold to Marston's in 2015, and th ...

and ING Lease UK and their refusal of an offer of 25p in the pound, the 134-year old Darwen Football Club was wound up in the High Court on 14 May 2009. Almost immediately, there were plans for a new Darwen football club to be formed. This was achieved before the start of the 2009–10 season, with AFC Darwen created, taking over the Anchor Ground from the dissolved club. However, the new club had to start at step 7 (level 11) of the

football pyramid Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

. They successfully applied for admission to the

West Lancashire League The West Lancashire Football League is a football competition based in northern England, consisting of five divisions – three for first teams (Premier, One and Two), and two for reserve teams. The top division, the Premier Division, sits at ...

, and were placed in the Premier Division. After finishing eighth in their first season, they were promoted to Division One of the North West Counties League. In 2014–15 the club won the Division One Trophy with a 3–1 win over Atherton Collieries in the final, also finishing third in Division One and qualifying for the promotion play-offs. After beating

Chadderton Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irk and Rochdale Canal. It is located in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Oldham, south of Rochdale and north-east of Manchester. The ...

2–1 in the semi-finals, they defeated Hanley Town 5–3 in the final, earning promotion to the Premier Division.BIG SATURDAY INTERVIEW: Chairman Wayne Wild reflects on AFC Darwen’s sensational season
Lancashire Telegraph, 6 June 2015 The 2017–18 season saw AFC Darwen finish bottom of the Premier Division, resulting in relegation to Division One North. In June 2022 the club was renamed Darwen Football Club.

Honours

*North West Counties League **Division One Trophy winners 2014–15 *Martin Vizzard Memorial Trophy **Winners 2016

Records

*Best

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

performance: Extra-preliminary round, 2015–16, 2016–17 *Best

FA Vase The Football Association Challenge Vase, also known as the Isuzu FA Vase for sponsorship reasons, is an annual football competition run by and named after The Football Association (The FA), for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English Nation ...

performance: Third round, 2022–23 *Record attendance: 982 vs

Bury AFC Bury Football Club is an English association football club based in Bury, Greater Manchester. It most recently played in the Premier Division of the North West Counties League, the ninth tier of the English football pyramid, following a 2023 m ...

, North West Counties League Division One, 9 October 2021Thank You to all who attended yesterday. Your support was massively appreciated
AFC Darwen on Twitter

References

External links

Official website
{{Coord, 53, 42, 42.38, N, 2, 28, 38.25, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Football clubs in England Football clubs in Lancashire Association football clubs established in 2009 2009 establishments in England Sport in Blackburn with Darwen Darwen West Lancashire Football League North West Counties Football League clubs

History

Honours

Records

See also

References

External links