Leamington

Leamington FC are the senior football club of the town of Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.

The club were formed as Leamington Town in 1891 before the club were voluntarily wound up in 1937 owing to financial troubles. Their Windmill Ground was sold to Coventry City FC for their reserves to use.

Lockheed, the company situated opposite the Windmill Ground, formed a club in 1946 called Lockheed Leamington and bought the ground back from Coventry City to house their team.

The club name changed to AP Leamington in 1973 after Automotive Products who supplied many of the players and who now owned the ground. 'The Brakes' who's nickname was derived from the works, were founder members of the Alliance Premier League (later Conference) in 1979. 

Unfortunately the clubs owners, Automotive Products hit the financial skids in 1985 so The Windmill was sold to property developers, AC Lloyd. The final league match at the ground was on 16th April, 1988 against Walsall Wood. 

The match ended 2-2, Duncan Gardener and Tony Graham the scorers for Leamington. The honour of being the last scorer at the Windmill in a "proper" game fell to a Walsall player, Roper, who equalised at 4.13 pm in front of the 500 crowd.

Where the ground once stood there is now a housing development. The turnstiles were sold to VS Rugby and some of the Main Stand went to Stratford Town. The floodlights, originally from Manchester City's Maine Road ground, were sold to a security firm.

In 2000 the club was revived at a new home, The New Windmill Ground in Whitnash, which is a village a couple of miles outside the town. The land was secured from a local farmer and has been built from scratch through fundraising and grants.

The Brakes started out in the lower divisions of the Midland Combination. Through hard work on and off the pitch, crowds grew and within five years they had progressed to the Midland Alliance and also reached the FA Cup first round proper before suffering a real drubbing at the hands of Colchester United.

Progress continued and two seasons later the club gained admission into the Southern League. The clubs supporters continued to assist and the New Windmill was gradually upgraded which allowed for further promotions.

Promotion was sealed by courtesy of the lifting of the Southern League Midland Division title in 2008-09. After a few seasons Leamington continued their progress under manager Paul Holleran as the Southern League title was sealed in 2012-13 to win promotion to Conference South.

After one season the club were moved to Conference North for geographical reasons.

Leamington FC will play in the Conference North for the 2014-15 season.

My visit

AP Leamington 2 Scarborough 0 (Saturday 27th December 1980) Alliance Premier League (att: 460)

I travelled down to Leamington on the supporters coach to watch Scarborough play in the Alliance Premier League. Boro played reasonably well but went one down, rallied and looked as they they may equalise. An older Boro fan who I'd never seen before said in true Scarborian gloom that AP would score the next goal and they duly did completely against the run of play.

I was unfortunate to lose a fiver somewhere that day and couldn't find it on the bus. A director of the time, Derek Watson saw my plight and told me not to worry about the coach fare. That was what Boro were like at that time. 

One happy kind family. Sadly Derek, a great club servant is no longer with us but it is so nice I see his son Barrie at Scarborough Athletic games and have a beer together occasionally.

The ground had a Main Stand that ran half the length of the Tachbrook Road side with changing rooms alongside it. To the right, and extending behind the northern goal, was terracing. 

The terracing gradually faded into a gently sloping gravel bank that continued round the other 2 sides of the pitch. The North or Windmill Road End was covered, as was a small section of the embankment opposite the stand. The Southern End had just a wire fence dividing it from the street behind offering many locals who were interested a free view.

We retired to the clubhouse after the game whilst the directors enjoyed the hospitality offered by our hosts.

The images used on this page have been taken from the internet.