The play-offs have taken center stage during the past fortnight, and it is easy to see why. From Swindon and Sheffield United’s breathless goalfest to Middlesbrough’s midfield masterclass and Southend’s superlative passing football, it’s been a great opportunity to get closely acquainted with the best of the rest in each division. However, playoff fever can lead to other remarkable successes being pushed into the background. And, whilst this has been one of the few seasons in recent memory where Fleetwood Town have not been celebrating a promotion – this campaign’s 10th place finish in League One might rank as their best achievement yet.
Speaking to BBC Sport in 2012, the club’s vice-chairman Phil Brown claimed ” If you had told me 20-odd years ago we would be in the Football League, I would have said you needed psychiatric help”. If you can look past the incredibly flippant mental health metaphor, there’s some semblance of truth in Brown’s words. Even in 1996, things looked especially bleak for the little club from the Fylde coast. In fact, there wasn’t a club left at this point. Playing at the (then) dilapidated Highbury Stadium, Fleetwood Town F.C. had folded in 1996. Just 12 months later, however, they were back on the pitch – though there was little sign of the stunning ascension through the divisions which was to click into place during the glorious summer of 2004.
Fleetwood, like Crawley Town have been tarred by some opposition fans with the concept of being simply a new money club, built on sand – and without the fanbase and the history. Admittedly, an average attendance of 3,522 for a first, successful League One campaign is modest to say the least – yet for a town of just 27,000 souls and a ground which holds only a shade over 5,000 fans, it’s hard to say that the town is disinterested in the club’s fortunes. And, as over 100 years in Non-League has shown, the misconception of Fleetwood Town being a club without history is just that – a misconception. It may not be a history as grand as that of fellow League One competitors like Sheffield United, PNE or Coventry City – all of whom have at least one FA Cup and top-flight pedigree in their history – but it is an interesting and proud history nonetheless.
Despite having reformed in 1997, Fleetwood Town (or simply Fleetwood F.C., to give them their original name), have been on the football scene since way back in 1908 – the same year Jamie Cureton made his professional debut. They featured in the inaugural season of the Northern Premier League, 1968-69, and remained in this league throughout the following decade. The NPL was, at that time, directly below the Football League, which worked on the archaic system of club re-election, instead of promotion and relegation. Despite the minimal opportunities for clubs to get a foothold on the league ladder, Highbury Stadium was graced by the likes of Australian international stars Adrian Alston and Peter Ollerton, both of whom featured in the 1974 World Cup, and, much further in the club’s past, Frank Swift – the revered former Manchester City and England goalkeeper who tragically lost his life in the Munich Air Disaster.
Long removed from the days that Alston et al. graced the Highbury turf, the success of the recent, heady decade at Fleetwood has been simplistically attributed to just one thing: money. Whilst the regular cash injections provided by Andrew Pilley – club chairman since 2004 – have so far totalled £10m+, excellent recruitment strategies and an attractive, renovated ground have signalled that good decisions have to be allied with big investment to build viable, long-term success.
Though Fleetwood could afford Champagne and caviar whilst many of their Non-League contemporaries could just about stretch to White Lightning and a bag of skittles, their transfer dealings have still had to be shrewd to catapult the side up through the leagues. Jamie Vardy proved an inspired buy, joining in 2011 from F.C. Halifax Town, and scoring 31 league goals in his only season at Highbury – before raking in a cool £1m for the Cod Army, as he headed east to Leicester. Whilst Vardy left for the glittering metropolis of Leicester (it has a pump museum!), the likes of Jamille Matt – signed from Kidderminster Harriers – and Antoni Sarsevic, who made the short journey from Chester F.C., have both improved and developed at Highbury Stadium, and established themselves on the Football League stage with some excellent displays.
Fleetwood Town’s on-field fortunes have also been aided by excellent managerial appointments. Micky Mellon, the man responsible for masterminding the recent resurgence of Shrewsbury Town was in the Highbury hotseat from 2008-2012, leading the club to promotions from Conference North and Conference Premier (finishing the 2011-12 campaign with a phenomenal 103 points). After Mellon’s exit, the club turned to PNE legend Graham Alexander. Both managers have endeared themselves to the Cod Army faithful by overseeing impressive on-field successes for Town. However, from an outsider’s point of view, it is pleasing to see a Football League club placing its trust in talented, young British managers, and reaping the rewards of that strategy.
However the most compelling figure in the club’s modern history is Nathan Pond. The reliable, versatile defender remains a beacon of both Fleetwood’s proud but humble Non-League past and its heady present – a reminder of how much has changed since he first wore the Red & White of the Cod Army in 2003, and yet symbolic of the fact that Town are wisely unwilling to part altogether with the traditions of an older and more modest Fleetwood Town F.C..
As for this past season? Whilst a 10th-place finish does not trigger the Promotion party those at Fleetwood Town have become increasingly accustomed to, a strong finish in League One may well represent the club’s finest achievement yet. Financially, they are, as manager Graham Alexander told the Blackpool Gazette in December 2014, no longer “a big fish”, at this level. He continued to elucidate that the club “have to find a different way of competing”, to the financial strength and comparatively generous wages which served as their backbone lower down the leagues.
This season, Fleetwood Town have recorded away wins at Sheffield United, Gillingham and Rochdale, to name just a few clubs. They remained unbeaten throughout August, taking 11 points from their first five games. They brought in talented players like Jamie Proctor and Stephen Crainey on free-transfers, in a summer where their spending has been far more cautious than their successes would suggest. And, at the stylish, revamped Highbury Stadium, the small but ever-increasing matchgoing fanbase saw eight home league wins, including a swashbuckling 3-1 demolition of Paul Dickov’s Doncaster Rovers. Not bad for a team who were lifting the North West Counties Football League Division One (try saying that after ten pints!) just ten short years ago. It’s been quite the rise for the club from Fylde.