Enfield Football Club was an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

club from

Accrington Accrington is a town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, east of Preston, north of Manchester and is situated on the culverted River Hyndburn. Commonly abbreviated by locals 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 ...

History

The club was formed in 1877 out of the

Enfield Cricket Club Enfield Cricket Club is a cricket club in the Lancashire League (not to be confused with the club of the same name in Middlesex), which plays its home games at Dill Hall Lane in Accrington. The club has won the league on 5 occasions and the cup ...

as a winter sporting activity, and was the first club in Accrington to play to association laws. It played in the first

Lancashire Senior Cup The Lancashire County Football Association Cup (commonly known as the Lancashire Senior Cup) is an association football knockout tournament involving teams from Lancashire, England. It is a County Cup competition of the Lancashire County Footbal ...

in 1879–80, but was unlucky to be drawn against

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second level of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

, at the time one of the strongest sides in the country, but managed to hold Rovers to a draw, and a 5–1 replay defeat was no disgrace. The club made a small profit of £3 over the season, thanks to a boost in membership to 164. The 1880–81 season proved to be the club's best, as it reached the semi-finals of Senior Cup, culminating in a quarter-final win over Eagley, by now a regular

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 ...

entrant. At the semi-final stage Enfield went down 3–0 to eventual winner (and town rival)

, in front of over 2,000 at the Accrington Cricket Ground. This raised the club's status enough that it could open its 1881–82 season with a friendly against future FA Cup winners Blackburn Olympic; the difference in standard was such that the visitors won 9–2, the report suggesting Enfield tended to panic and follow the ball, leaving the Light Blues attackers unmarked. Enfield learned the lessons of the match, as in the third round of the Senior Cup, the clubs met again, and this time Enfield held the Olympians to a draw at the Hole i'the Wall ground; Hanson scored a late equalizer for Enfield, who then pressed the Olympians' goal for the remainder of the match, but could not pull off the shock result. Olympic handily won the replay, and an Enfield protest that Olympic had fielded an ineligible player ( Harry Sharples), but the protest was dismissed. Gradually, its better players started to join other clubs (full-back Pickup to Blackburn Park Road and half-back Ramsbottom to Turton), and for a prestigious match at Accrington at Christmas 1882, Enfield could only muster 10 men. Its last recorded match of any note was a 3–1 home defeat to Turton in the first round of the 1883–84 Senior Cup, and its remaining players drifted from the association game, although many (including Pickup, Ramsbottom, and Hanson) continued with the cricket side. The final recorded match was a 4–1 win at the original Blackpool F.C. in April 1884, but Blackpool had rested many of its players, as straight after the Enfield game, Blackpool was facing the

Vale of Leven The Vale of Leven () is an area of West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, in the valley of the River Leven, Dunbartonshire, River Leven. Historically, it was part of The Lennox, the name of which derives from the Gaelic term ''Leamhnach'', meaning ''fie ...

Colours

The club wore navy jerseys, originally with white knickers and navy hose; in 1880 the club changed its hose to white.

Ground

The club played at the Enfield Cricket Ground, one and a half miles from Accrington railway station and

Rishton railway station Rishton railway station is in the southern part of the town of Rishton, Lancashire, England. The station is on the East Lancashire Line, operated by Northern Trains. History A wooden platform was opened on 19 June 1848, when the line was first ...

References

{{Authority control Accrington Stanley F.C. Defunct football clubs in England Defunct football clubs in Lancashire Sport in Hyndburn Association football clubs established in 1877 Association football clubs disestablished in 1884 1884 disestablishments in England Accrington 1877 establishments in England History of Hyndburn