Irchester United 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 based in the village of

Irchester Irchester is a village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, two miles (3 km) south-east of Wellingborough and two miles south-west of Rushden. The population of the village at the 2011 Census was 5,706 and estimated in 2019 at 5,767 ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

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 ...

. They are currently members of the and play at Alfred Street.

History

The club was established as Irchester Excelsior in 1883, before being renamed Irchester United in 1885.Background on Irchester United
Potton United F.C. They joined Division Two of the Northamptonshire League in 1896, but finished bottom of the division in the 1896–97 season and left the league.Northamptonshire League 1895–1934
Non-League Matters In 1928–29 the club won the Rushden & District League. After retaining the league title the following season, and also winning both the Northamptonshire Junior Cup and the Irchester Charity Cup, they rejoined Division Two of the United Counties League. The club went on to win the division at the first attempt, but they were not promoted. Although they won the division again the following season, they remained in Division Two. However, in 1933 the league was reduced to a single division, and in 1934 it was renamed the United Counties League. The club left the league again in 1936. Returning to the Rushden & District League, which their reserves had won in 1932–33 and 1933–34 Irchester won the league in 1936–37. Between 1947 and 1957 they won four more league titles. In 1969 the club rejoined the United Counties League and were placed in Division Three, which became Division Two in 1972. They were Division Two runners-up in 1973–74, earning promotion to Division One. In 1980 the club was renamed Irchester Eastfield after a merger with Wellingborough Eastfield due to a shortage of players. However, they reverted to Irchester United in 1990. The next two decades were a period of struggle as the club ended the season in last place in Division One in 1990–91, 1991–92, 1995–96 and 1999–2000. Although the 2002–03 season saw a third-place finish, they finished bottom of the table in three successive seasons between 2006–07 and 2008–09. However, the following season, 2009–10, the club won the Division One title, earning promotion to the Premier Division. Following three seasons in the Premier Division, Irchester were relegated back to Division One after finishing bottom of the division in

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

. At the end of the 2020–21 season they were transferred to Division One of the

Spartan South Midlands League The Spartan South Midlands Football League is an English football league covering Hertfordshire, northwest Greater London, central Buckinghamshire and southern Bedfordshire. It is a feeder to the Southern Football League or the Isthmian League, ...

Ground

The club initially played at the Boundleys, with a nearby

working men's club Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland, Northern Ireland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education ...

used as the changing rooms. They moved to Alfred Street in 1921. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the ground was ploughed up, and when football restarted after the war the club played at the Recreation Ground before returning to Alfred Street in 1952.

Honours

*United Counties League **Division One champions 2009–10 **Division Two champions 1930–31, 1931–32 *Rushden & District League **Champions 1928–29, 1929–30, 1936–37 *Northamptonshire Junior Cup **Winners 1929–30, 1933–34, 1948–49, 1975–76

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, 2011–12,

, 2013–14 *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: Second round, 2018–19

References

External links

* {{coord, 52.281518, N, 0.65134361, W, display=title Football clubs in England Football clubs in Northamptonshire 1883 establishments in England Association football clubs established in 1883 United Counties League Spartan South Midlands Football League