Developments and The Northern League
The club began to develop, with more success in local Scarborough & East Riding County Cup competitions and the creation of a reserves team who would play in the newly created Scarborough League, though the first team continued to lose heavily in FA Cup games. Scarborough were invited to become one of the founding members of the Cleveland Amateur League, but they left after one season, because as soon as a visiting club was beaten at the Recreation Ground, they would complain to get the result overturned due to the pitch size. The club was also amongst the first to compete in the FA Amateur Cup. In the 1898–99 season Scarborough took a step up, by joining the Northern League Second Division, and the club also had a new ground built in the form of the Athletic Ground. A disagreement about the headquarters saw the club torn in two; half of the players and staff stayed and the other half broke off to found the Scarborough Utopians.
The Second Division of the Northern League was abolished in 1900; this saw Scarborough and two other clubs admitted to the single Northern League division. Around this era the league was strong, featuring the likes of Bishop Auckland, as well as reserves of Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. It was during the early 1900s that Ocky Johnson debuted, the most prolific goalscorer in the history of the club with at least 245 goals, he was one of Scarborough's all-time heroes. In 1906, Thomas Cole became chairman of the club and sought efforts to battle the club's debts; he would remain chairman until the mid-1920s. Scarborough won their first North Riding Senior Cup final in 1909, a competition which they would win many times; during the league in the early 1900s they were consistently mid-table finishers. Scarborough joined a new league in 1910—11 in the form of the Yorkshire Combination, a mixture of professional and amateur clubs from the county. Boro managed decent results in the league but after four years it collapsed due to lack of support from major clubs, leading Scarborough to return to the Northern League. World War I interrupted any meaningful sporting activities; Boro players Tommy Renwick and Sam Horsman died during it. Scarborough were more fortunate than many clubs who were dissolved during this period, managing to survive throughout.
Read more about this topic: History Of Scarborough F.C.
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