Loughborough's Lost Football League Club

As you probably already know, the blog – lynneaboutloughborough – is celebrating its 10th anniversary in August, and by way of commemorating this, I am hosting a series of guest blog posts throughout the month.

As is the case with a lot of local history interactions, I stumbled across Sean, writing as Carduelis, over on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. In reality, it can’t really have been all that long ago, as Sean is also celebrating an anniversary this year – his first! Congrats, Sean!! I recently met Sean in person, and was really quite excited because I knew he would be able to fill in a big gap in my blog posts!!

So, thanks to Sean, let’s kick off the celebratory month of August with a blog post about football!!!   

Loughborough’s Lost Football League Club

Sean Dudley  

The Loughborough F.C. team from their Midland League days. The club’s name is incorrect in the headline. From The Wyvern: a topical, critical and humorous journal, at the University of Leicester, SCD 01212 - 01217.

I grew up near Loughborough, went to secondary school there, and also have family who live in the town today. I have fond memories of hanging out with mates and spending listless hours wandering around Loughborough’s streets. So when Lynne asked me to contribute an article to help celebrate 10 years of her fantastic blog, I was very happy to do so.

But one of my personal grievances when it comes to Loughborough is that there isn’t a lower league football team befitting a town of its size, plying its trade in the English football pyramid’s echelons. There are of course semi-pro and amateur teams knocking about, but this is generally regional football on a fairly small-scale basis.

The kind of club I’m talking about would be a bona fide lower league team, maybe in League One or Two, perhaps the Vanarama National League. I mean the kind of clubs that serve towns that are a comparable size to Loughborough, where the whole town pivots towards the football when the team is playing at home. I cannot help but feel that having that kind of local sporting entertainment would have served the teenage me in particular very well.

As many readers will already know, Loughborough has a population of roughly 60,000 people, which admittedly fluctuates with the influx of students that live in and leave the town each year. Five current football league clubs are located in towns with a smaller population than Loughborough – specifically Barrow-in-Furness, Accrington, Morecambe, Fleetwood and Nailsworth, home of Forest Green Rovers. A further six National League clubs are located in towns with fewer than 60,000 residents.

Granted, town population and the success of a football club are not inextricably linked. Wakefield has 343,000 residents for example, but has never seen a team come remotely close to the Football League.

But there is a specific reason why it seems such a shame that Loughborough doesn’t have a well-established club in the lower reaches of the Football League or higher echelons of non-league (no offence to Loughborough Dynamo). That’s because it had one. One that played in the second division of the Football League.

Loughborough’s emergence

This club originally formed in 1886 following a merger between Loughborough Victoria and Loughborough Athletic, before merging again with the local athletics club to form Loughborough Athletic and Football Club. For some reason, photos and information from around this time often erroneously lists the club as Loughborough Town F.C., but the club was generally known as Loughborough F.C.

Initially, Loughborough F.C. played in the Midland League. They won the title in 1894-95 and were elected into the Football League after Millwall Athletic – now known just as plain old Millwall – turned down an invitation to join the league’s ranks.

Player profiles of Loughborough players in a local publication in 1892. From The Wyvern: a topical, critical and humorous journal, at the University of Leicester, SCD 01212 - 01217.

Loughborough F.C., known imaginatively as ‘The Luffs’, played for a full five seasons in the second tier of English Football.

The club played at the Athletic Grounds, which sat behind the former Greyhound Hotel on Nottingham Road, with many readers likely remembering that the Greyhound Hotel was still in use as the Greyhound Inn into the 2010s. The land on which the ground stood is now housing, with Bromhead Street, Salisbury Street, Bishop Street and Hudson Street lying over what would have been the pitch and stands. The ground was not far from the train station, the canal and the big Brush Electrical Machines factory – all features befitting close proximity to a lower league club stadium I think you will agree.

The Athletic Grounds lay north-east of the centre of Loughborough, as shown on this map from 1903 after the club had folded. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Map: https://maps.nls.uk/index.html 

The former Greyhound Hotel on Nottingham Road, Loughborough. The main entrance to the ground was along the passage to the right, which until the 1970s had a metal arched sign reading ‘Athletic Grounds’. Credit: Sean Dudley

Houses on the site of the former ground. Credit: Sean Dudley

During their fairly short existence, a number of players of interest donned the black and white striped shirts, blue shorts, and black socks that comprised Loughborough’s strip.

A progression of Loughborough F.C.’s kits from 1889-1900. Copyright and Credit: historicalkits.co.uk and reproduced by kind permission.

One such player is James Logan, who is probably most famous for bagging a hat trick in the 1894 FA Cup Final for Notts County. After spells at Dundee and Newcastle United, Logan joined Loughborough – a decision that would ultimately prove fateful.

Jimmy Logan was a prolific Loughborough striker who met an untimely end.
Credit: copyright-free image in the public domain, available from Wikimedia Commons

On the way to a match against Newton Heath (now Manchester United), someone among the Loughborough staff realised that the team’s kit had been lost. Loughborough were apparently unable to borrow an alternative kit in which to play the match, so ended up wearing what they had on. It rained for the full 90 minutes, Loughborough lost 2-0, and the players had to wear the same clothes they had played in during the journey back. Logan caught a nasty cold, but seemed to recover and actually played in a match against Crewe Alexandra shortly after the Newton Heath debacle. He then however developed pneumonia and sadly passed away at the age of 25.

Logan was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave in Loughborough Cemetery. Thankfully, funds were raised in 2016 to honour the former player with a headstone. Logan is also commemorated with a road named after him – Jimmy Logan Way, near Derby Road Playing Fields.

Jimmy Logan's memorial stone in Loughborough cemetery on Leicester Road

The Football League Years

Generally speaking, Loughborough's stay in the Football League was not a successful one. The team started reasonably well, with a respectable 12th-placed finish in the 1895-96 season, and came 13th in the 1896-97 season. It was during this season that Loughborough inflicted Arsenal’s worst-ever defeat – an 0-8 away win being a record that still exists for The Gunners to this day.

The club seems likely to have developed a dubious reputation within football circles after an incident in 1896. This saw some of the 2,000 fans in attendance launch a physical attack on a referee following a controversial performance in a match against Walsall. Though the referee was shaken but unharmed, the club faced severe punishment at the time.

Above and Below: Articles about the crowd trouble at the fixture against Walsall in 1896. From The Wyvern: a topical, critical and humorous journal, at the University of Leicester, SCD 01212 - 01217.

An advertisement in a local publication promoting Loughborough’s trip to local rivals Leicester Fosse. Walnut Street Ground is better known as Filbert Street, home to Leicester City F.C. from 1891-2002. From The Wyvern: a topical, critical and humorous journal, at the University of Leicester, SCD 01212 - 01217.

The demise of Loughborough F.C.

A bottom-placed finish in 1897-98 was a sign of things to come. Loughborough finished 17th of 18 in 1898-99, and rock bottom in the 1899-1900 season. This last season was a catastrophe, with Loughborough playing 34 games, losing 27, drawing 6, and winning just once. They scored 18 goals and conceded 100.

This disaster would see the club fail to get re-election to the Football League, with on and off-field issues leading to only three clubs giving them their support for re-election.

And with that, Loughborough’s time in the Football League was over. Loughborough were accepted back into the Midland League, but club representatives didn’t turn up to the fixtures meeting. Just a few weeks after this missed appointment, the club was wound up at an ‘important general meeting’ which only one member of Loughborough’s committee attended. 

The final standings of the 1895-96 season. This shows some of the clubs with which Loughborough F.C. were competing. From The Wyvern: a topical, critical and humorous journal, at the University of Leicester, SCD 01212 - 01217.

This all meant the end of football in the higher echelons of the English game in the town, which is where Loughborough’s story differs from other similar tales so frustratingly. When you consider the clubs that comprised English football’s second tier when Loughborough did hold pretty high esteem – think Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle United, Newton Heath, Leicester Fosse, and Woolwich Arsenal – it seems bizarre no ancestor exists today, and it’s hard to know exactly why.

Though the exact reasons for the club’s initial demise are not overly clear, a spiralling wage bill, general mismanagement and a limited catchment area have been cited as possibilities. The first two reasons could be amended through a new club, but the latter may have been the real reason the town has not been home to a lower league club with the standing of Loughborough Athletic and Football Club since 1900.

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Sean Dudley is a freelance copywriter and historical researcher based in Leicester, who operates under the name Carduelis Content & Historical Research. You can contact Sean via email on sean@carduelischr.com. 

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Other books that might be of interest

Kirkby, David (1996). 'Loughborough Corinthians: the story of non-league soccer in Loughborough'. Loughborough: David Kirkby Sports Publications. 0951544930

Kirkby, David (1995). 'The "Luffs": the story of the Loughborough Town Football Club 1886 - 1900.' Loughborough: Echo Press. 0951574922

Wilford, Barry (2014). 'The "Athletic Grounds" of Loughborough: the history of Leicestershire's first enclosed arena, part of Loughborough's sporting past, from 1862 - 1908.' Loughborough: Panda Eyes. 9780957102774

There are also a few references to football, and to Fosse Football Club in:

Wykes, Alfred (2023) 'Letters from the Front: Alfred Wykes' Great War Diary.' Loughborough: Lamplight Press, for The Carillon War Memorial Museum, Loughborough. 9781999588724

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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