Loughborough University Football Club (also known as Loughborough Students Football Club) is an English
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 representing
Loughborough University
Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public university, public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university sinc ...
, based in
Loughborough
Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood (borough), Charnwood Borough of Leicestershire, England; it is the administrative centre of Charnwood Borough Council. At the United Kingdom 2021 census, the town's built-up area had a popula ...
,
Leicestershire
Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...
. The club are currently members of the and play at the Loughborough University Stadium.
History
The club was founded in 1920 under the name Loughborough College. They joined Division Two of the
Leicestershire Senior League
The Leicestershire Senior League (currently sponsored by Everards Brewery) is a association football, football competition based in Leicestershire, England.
History
The league was formed in 1896, had a two-year hiatus between 1901 and 1903, and ...
in 1966, where they remained until 1972. The club then left Senior football, and did not return until 2007 when they were promoted to the Premier Division of the
Midland Combination
The Midland Football Combination was an English football league covering parts of the West Midlands. It comprised five divisions, a Premier Division, Divisions One and Two and two Reserves Divisions. The league was one of three official feeder l ...
. In 2008–09 they won the league's Premier Division, and were promoted to the
Midland Alliance
The Midland Football Alliance was an English association football league for semi-professional teams. It covered Leicestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and also southern parts of Derbyshire and ...
. The Scholars ground shared at fellow local side
Loughborough Dynamo
Loughborough Dynamo Football Club is a community interest football club based in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. They are currently members of the and play at the Nanpantan Sports Ground.
History
The club was established in 1955 by pup ...
until moving into the new Holywell Park, Loughborough University Stadium.
In 2011, the club beat
Boldmere St Michaels 4–2 to lift the League Cup at
Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located ...
's
Bescot Stadium
Bescot Stadium, currently known as the Pallet-Track Bescot Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in the area of Bescot, Walsall, West Midlands, England, and is the current home ground of Walsall Football Club and Aston Vill ...
, then won the trophy again the following season when they beat
Tipton Town 2–0.
Manager
Stuart McLaren
Stuart McLaren (born 28 August 1975) is a Scottish-Australian football player and coach, who is assistant coach for the Northern Ireland national women's team.
Biography
Queensland Roar coach Miron Bleiberg signed McLaren on a short-term cont ...
resigned from his post in 2014 after being announced as the new
Stirling Albion
Stirling Albion Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the city of Stirling. The club was founded in 1945 following the demise of King's Park after World War II. The club currently competes in as a member of the Scottish Profession ...
manager. Following this, Michael Skubala was appointed as part time Performance Manager and put former
Chesterfield manager
John Duncan and
Graham Harvey in charge of the 1st team. However, they were not able to avoid finishing in the bottom three of the Midland Football League Premier. Relegation was nonetheless avoided due to
Causeway United folding at the end of the season.
For the 2015–16 season, the club turned to former Quorn AFC assistant manager and experienced non-league manager Karl Brennan, and saw an upturn in results in his first part time management role.
In January 2017, Richard Allen, formally Head of Recruitment at Tottenham Hotspur, Academy Manager at QPR, and more recently Head of Talent at the Football Association, was appointed as the first ever Director of Football. Alex Ackerley was subsequently confirmed as the full time Men's Head Coach and Mat Stock elevated from Programme Coordinator to Programme Manager.
The team managed to narrowly avoid relegation in the 2016-17 season.
With the reorganisation of the Step 5 leagues in 2019, Loughborough Students FC were moved in to the United Counties League. The club reached the final of the Leicestershire and Rutland FA Senior Cup Final only to lose out in the final to Step 3 side Coalville Town FC
In 2021, former Leeds, Middlesbrough, Hull, and Barnsley Assistant Manager and former Ipswich and Birmingham player Jamie Clapham was appointed as Men's Head Coach replacing Alex Ackerley who joined Sunderland FC's academy as a coach.
In the 2021–22 season, the Scholars were crowned BUCS National Champions for the first time in nine years and were semi-finalists in the FA Vase (losing away to Littlehampton Town), their best ever performance in the Vase. In the 2022–23 season, they narrowly missed out on an inter-league play-off place. In the 2023–24 season, after finishing third in the league, they secured promotion via the playoffs beating Skegness 7-0 in the playoff final, gaining promotion for the first time to non-league Step 4, and were runners up in the Leicestershire and Rutland County Cup.
Notable former players
Alumni that went on to play or work in football include:
Hall of Fame
Loughborough University FC
*Oladapo Afolayan
Oladapo Joshua Afolayan (born 11 September 1997) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger or centre-forward for Bundesliga club FC St. Pauli.
He spent his youth at a multitude of clubs: Harrow St Marys, Chelsea, Toronto FC, ...
*Ebby Nelson-Addy
Ebenezer Godfried Nelson-Addy (born 13 September 1992) is an English footballer who plays for side Bedford Town, where he plays as a midfielder. He is a product of the Aston Villa Academy.
Career Youth career
Nelson-Addy started his career at ...
* Alan Bradshaw
* Tom Curtis
*Greg Fee
Greg Fee (born 24 June 1964) is an English former professional footballer who played as a central defender.
Career
Born in Halifax, Fee played for Bradford City, Kettering Town, Boston United, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End, Northampto ...
* Lee Howarth
*Ray Long
William Ray Long, (March 23, 1878 – July 9, 1935) was an American newspaper, magazine, film, writer, and editor who is notable for being the editor-in-chief of ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine between 1919 and 1931. He is said to have had "a colorfu ...
* Mattar M'Boge
*Paul McGuinness
Paul McGuinness (born 16 June 1951) is an Irish talent manager. He was the founder of Principle Management Limited, a popular music act management company based in Dublin, Ireland. He was the manager of the rock band U2 from 1978 to 2013.
Ea ...
*Leon McSweeney
Leon McSweeney (born 19 February 1983) is an Irish former footballer who made more than 200 appearances in the Football League. McSweeney now serves as the U21 Senior Development Phase Coach at former club Leicester City.
Ireland
Leon McSweeney ...
* Rob Matthews
*Bradley Pritchard
Bradley Pritchard (born 19 December 1985) is a Zimbabwean former professional association football, footballer who played as a midfielder. He is currently manager of club Lewes F.C., Lewes. He previously played for Carshalton Athletic F.C., Car ...
*Lawrie Sanchez
Lawrence Sanchez (born 22 October 1959) is a football manager and former international footballer for Northern Ireland.
The defining moment of his playing career came in the 1988 FA Cup final, when he scored the winning goal for Wimbledon aga ...
*Robbie Simpson
Robbie Simpson (born 15 March 1985 in Poole, Dorset) is an English former professional footballer who played as a forward.
His previous clubs include Cambridge City, Cambridge United, Coventry City, Huddersfield Town, Brentford, Oldham Athl ...
*Tony Waiters
Anthony Keith Waiters (1 February 1937 – 5 November 2020) was an English footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is better known for his coaching career in Canada. He managed the Vancouver Whitecaps to an NASL championship, and was in charge ...
* George Williams
*Bob Wilson Bob Wilson may refer to:
Association footballers
*Bob Wilson (footballer, born 1867) (1867–?), Irish international footballer of the 1880s
*Bob Wilson (footballer, born September 1898) 1920s, Scottish footballer with Third Lanark and Fall Ri ...
Dario Gradi
Dario Gradi (born 8 July 1941) is an Italian-English former football player, coach and manager. He was associated for more than 36 years with Crewe Alexandra, where he was variously manager, director of football and director of the Academy, unt ...
Barry Hines
Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL (30 June 1939 – 18 March 2016) was an English author, playwright and screenwriter. His novels and screenplays explore the political and economic struggles of working-class Northern England, particularly in his native W ...
Ted Powell
Edward W. Powell (1940 – 22 September 2005) was an English amateur footballer who went on to coach the Malawi national team and the England Under-18 side which won the European Championship in 1993. Powell was a teacher at Sutton Grammar Sch ...
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: 1st qualifying round, 2011–12, 2021–22, 2022–23
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...
, 2024–25
*Best FA Trophy
The Football Association Challenge Trophy, also known as the Isuzu FA Trophy for sponsorship reasons, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after The Football Association (the FA) and competed by mainly National League ...
performance: 2nd qualifying round, 2024–25
*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: Semi-finals, 2021–22
Honours
*United Counties League
**Premier Division North playoff champions 2023–24
References
External links
*
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University and college football clubs in England
Association football clubs established in 1920
F.C.
Leicestershire Senior League
Midland Football Alliance
Midland Football Combination
Football clubs in Leicestershire
1920 establishments in England
Midland Football League
Football clubs in England