The Mens Team - Winsford United F.C.
Winsford United Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Winsford, Cheshire, England. The club was founded in 1883 and is nicknamed The Blues. The club is currently a member of the North West Counties Football League Premier Division, with home matches played at Barton Stadium
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History
Winsford United were founded in 1883, as Over Wanderers and played football in the Welsh Combination Football League. They changed their name and moved to their current ground, the Barton Stadium (then called the Great Western Playing Field), a few years later. However, after excessive spending, the club soon folded.
They re-formed just before the outbreak of the First World War, and re-grouped after this had finished under a committee led by Mr. R. G. Barton, becoming a founder member of the Cheshire League. From then until the late 1970s, Winsford United played football locally in Cheshire. Highlights of this period included one FA Cup first round appearance, against Peterborough United, and Cheshire league wins in 1920-21 and 1976-77. During this period in the late 1970s, the club also reached the quarter finals of the FA Trophy and featured future Welsh international goalkeeper Neville Southall.
The Cheshire League merged with other regional divisions to become the North West Counties Football League in 1982, with Winsford doing sufficiently well to enter the Northern Premier League Division One upon its formation in 1987. They were promoted from that in 1992, and enjoyed their highest ever finish as runners up of the Northern Premier League Premier Division in 1992-93. They also reached the FA Cup First Round for a second time, losing to Wrexham, and won the Northern Premier League Challenge Cup.
The successful team was broken up, however, when manager Mike McKenzie moved on to local rivals Witton Albion. After a few more seasons in the bottom half of the Northern Premier League Premier Division, and another local derby in the FA Cup first round - this time against Chester City - the club were relegated three times in four seasons. At the start of the 2003-04 season, they found themselves in the North West Counties Division Two. They were finally promoted on April 24, 2007 to the North West Counties Football League Division One and secured the Division 2 title on April 28, 2007. Manager Joe Gibiliru left in the Summer of 2009 and Terry Murphy, former Middlewich Town F.C. manager, was brought in as replacement. Although at the back end of August 2009 Murphy left the club due to family reasons and his assistant, Mike Alcock, was promoted to Manager. Dean Latham. Alcock did not, however, last long as at the beginning of September 2009 he was forced to resign due to ill health and coach Tony Ledwards was promoted to manager. In March 2010, Ledwards stepped down as manager after a poor run of results and the club was taken over by a co-management team of Mike Alcock and Dave Twite. At the end of the 2009/10 season, Alcock and Twite decided not to continue as managers and became involved in coaching and scouting roles instead. Chris Willcock was announced as the new manager and later named Ian Street as his assistant, it was to be Willcock's second spell in charge of the Cheshire club after leading them to promotion from North West Counties Division Two in 2007.
Stadium
The club play at the Barton Stadium, which is located off Kingsway in the Wharton area of Winsford town. The stadium formerly had a greyhound track. It was formerly known as the Great Western Playing Field, but was renamed in honour of R.G. Barton, who led the committee to re-establish Winsford United after the First World War.
