History
The club was founded in 1883, and joined the Northern Alliance at the start of the 1892–93 season, but at the end of the season the club was forced to retire from the Alliance due to a poor result. In 1895, after a financial crisis was averted and the manager of Ashington Collieries, E.O. Souther, became the president of the club, they successfully applied to join the East Northumberland League, which they won in 1898. At the end of the 1901–02 season the club rejoined the Northern Alliance on their second application, and in 1907 moved to their former ground, Portland Park. The club won the Alliance in 1914, and moved to the North Eastern League the following season, where a few mid-table performances resulted before and after World War I.
In 1921, the club was elected to The Football League and became one of the founder members of the Third Division North. They recorded their best season ever in 1923–24, finishing 8th. They recorded their best FA Cup performance during the 1926–27 season, when they reached the 3rd round, losing 0–2 to Nottingham Forest. However, they were voted out of the league in 1929 after finishing in last place, and were replaced by York City.
The club was forced to rejoin the North Eastern League at the "B" League level for a single year before rising to the upper division. Ashington remained with the North Eastern League for the next nearly thirty years. In 1950, the club recorded its record attendance, when 13,199 saw them play Rochdale in the FA Cup. However, the North Eastern League was forced to fold due to financial troubles in 1958.
The club moved to the Midland League for two seasons, but the Midland League also folded in 1960. The team then moved to the newly created Northern Counties League, which two seasons later took the defunct North Eastern League's name. Unfortunately the new North Eastern League followed the same fate as the old one, folding in 1964. The club then spent a season in the Wearside Football League and three seasons in the North Regional League before becoming a founding member of the Northern Premier League in 1968. However, they dropped out after one season, spending a single season in the Northern Football Alliance.
Ashington joined Northern League at the start of the 1970–71 season, and have remained there ever since, though one of their greatest successes in the early years of this period was cup related. In the 1973–74 season they reached semi-finals of the last FA Amateur Cup competition, before losing to eventual winners Bishop's Stortford, as well as being runners up for the Northern League Cup and the Northumberland Senior Cup. Overall, the seventies were a time of consistency and mid-table league performances, other than a near-drop in 1971–72 and some better performances near the end of the decade. The eighties were a tougher time for the Colliers, with poor performances leading to a drop into the newly formed Northern League Second Division, where they found themselves mid-table most years. The nineties showed steady improvement, with results trending more towards the top half of the table, leading to their promotion back to Division One in 2001 when they won the Division Two championship. Although they fell back down the next year, ending up two points short after a three point deduction, they won the Division Two championship again in 2004, and were able to stick in the upper division. In 2010, they had an excellent cup year, repeating a feat from 1974 by reaching the finals of both the Northern League Cup and the Northumberland Senior Cup, but lost them both again: the former to South Shields on penalties and the latter to Whitley Bay.
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