History of Scarborough F.C. - Rise Into The Football League

Rise Into The Football League

Non-league football was revolutionised with the creation of the Alliance Premier League just below The Football League for the start of the 1980s. With Don Robinson as chairman, Scarborough was able to improve many elements of its ground and entered the new league. After building up a squad with seasoned former Football League players in 1980—81, Scarborough mounted a decent challenge for the championship but eventually finished third. Colin Williams was a key player for Scarborough during this time, finishing as Alliance Premier League topscorer for two seasons in a row. Harry Dunn was given a warm send off in 1983 after serving the club for twenty years, playing around 900 games for the club. Crowd attendances began to decline as Scarborough generally finished in mid-table positions, as well as being unable to progress further than the First Round of the FA Cup, or perform well in the FA Trophy. Despite John Hanson's goals. Success in the Bob Lord Trophy, beating Barnet in 1984 was one of the rare high points of this period. Fan favourite Harry Dunn returned for a spell as part-time manager, guiding the side, which included the likes of Neil Thompson to a sixth place finish during 1984—85. New chairman Barry Adamson demanded change and brought in Neil Warnock as manager, who brought in nine new first team players. Adamson died part way through the season at age 47, which stunned the club though spurred them on to challenge for the title in his honour. Scarborough went 22 games unbeaten during part of the season, four days after beating Sutton United 2—0, the club was declared champions and promoted to The Football League for the first time in their 108 year history. Scarborough were entered into the Football League Fourth Division playing their first Football League game against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a 2—2 draw.

After gaining their footing with a solid 12th place finish during their first season in The Football League, Scarborough reached the promotion playoffs in 1988—89 due to finishing sixth, though they lost out to Leyton Orient. Rivalry with York City picked up during this period. Scarborough were having major financial problems off the field, due to the step up; this in part led to the resignation of Warnock during the 1988-89 season, with coach Colin Morris stepping up to replace him. The business smarts of Geoffrey Richmond saved the club and a deal with McCain saw the Athletic Ground renamed the McCain Stadium, nicknamed The Theatre of Chips. Despite a bad start to the following season, which led to the dismissal of Morris and his replacement by Ray McHale, Scarborough became giant killers when they dumped Chelsea out of the League Cup in October 1989, with Martin Russell scoring the winner in the 3—2 home victory. The 1992—93 season saw the introduction of the Premier League and so the division Scarborough was in was renamed Football League Division Three. The season brought more excitement in the League Cup as Scarborough reached the Fourth Round, knocking out Bradford City, Coventry City and Plymouth Argyle before narrowly losing 1—0 to Arsenal due to a Nigel Winterburn goal. Darren Foreman became the first Boro player to score a hat-trick in The Football League and was a prolific goalscorer throughout his stay.

Scarborough finished dangerously close to the Division Four drop zone in the 1989-90 season, despite their cup exploits, but their form improved in the two seasons that followed, which saw finishes of 9th and 12th respectively. They were again in play-off contention for much of 1992-93, but a dismal run of form saw McHale sacked and replaced by Phil Chambers as the season drew to a close. Chambers in turn was dismissed only a few months into the following season after a poor start (though his cause was not helped by having had to sell off much of his squad during the summer), and replaced by Steve Wicks, who engineered a major turnaround in form to finish in 14th place. Richmond took control of Bradford City in 1994 and their chairman Dave Simpson took control of Scarborough in a "swap" move. Simpson in turn sold the club to John Russell later that year.

A decent FA Cup run in 1994—95 saw Boro make it to a Third Round replay, before going out to Watford. Their league form, however, sunk to new lows that season. Wicks was harshly sacked just before the season started and replaced by the more experienced Billy Ayre, who himself lasted just five months as manager and was sacked with the club bottom of the league. The managerial merry-go-round came full circle as Ray McHale was reinstated as manager just a year-and-a-half since being sacked, but he had little more luck turning things around and they finished second-bottom of the Football League after statistically the club's worst-ever season, with only goals scored keeping them above bottom-place Exeter City. 1995-96 proved to be another thoroughly dismal campaign, and a horrific late-season run resulted in another second-bottom finish, albeit with a more comfortable gap over bottom-placed Torquay United. McHale finally threw the towel in and resigned weeks before the season ended, leaving coach Mitch Cook in charge for the final few matches, and making this the fourth season in a row that the club had not kept a manager in charge throughout the campaign.

After finding a stable manager in Mick Wadsworth, Scarborough were able to overturn several seasons of struggle to secure a 12th place finish in 1996-97, before reaching the Division Three playoffs the following year; unfortunately for the club they crashed 7—2 on aggregate to Torquay United. The following season in 1998—99 saw the club stuck to the bottom of the table for most of the campaign, leading to Wadsworth resigning and Colin Addison taking over as manager. Results quickly improved under the new manager, but all the other teams near the bottom also went on good runs of form at the same time, meaning that all Scarborough could do was not get cut adrift at the bottom. They finally managed to move off bottom place after the penultimate match, but in a dramatic ending to the season, Scarborough were relegated from The Football League due to a goal in the last minute, of the last day of the season by Carlisle United's on-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass. The fact that their 48 points was (and remains to this day) the highest for a club finishing bottom of any division was of little comfort to the fans. This was the first relegation in the history of the club, and it would ultimately prove to be the beginning of a downward spiral from which the club would never recover.