Bacup Borough F.C.

Did You Know?

• The club's record attendance of 4,980 was set against Nelson in 1947.
• The club was renamed Bacup & Rossendale Borough in 2013 after nearby Rossendale United folded, but later reverted to Bacup Borough.

History

Bacup Borough Football Club began life in 1879 as Irwell Springs Football Club, a works team set up by brothers John and Robert Rankine, both former players with Vale of Leven, for the Irwell Springs Dyeing Works. The club made an early mark in the 1883–84 FA Cup, reaching the third round before a heavy 8–1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers. In 1892 the side changed its name to Bacup, and the following season it joined the Lancashire League, taking over the fixtures left by Barrow after their resignation on 20 November 1893.

Bacup finished bottom of the table in its first campaign but climbed to a top-half finish the next year. The club then withdrew from the league partway through the 1897–98 season without completing its matches. Bacup returned to the Lancashire League in 1901, staying for two seasons before becoming a founder member of the new Division Two of the Lancashire Combination in 1903. The team remained in that division until the end of the 1910–11 season, when a sixth-place finish was enough to earn promotion to Division One; that same year the club also won the Lancashire Junior Cup.

Relegation followed immediately after finishing bottom the next season. After three more difficult years near the foot of Division Two, Bacup left the league in 1915. Following the First World War, the club rejoined in 1920, now renamed Bacup Borough. It stayed in the single-division Lancashire Combination until the Second World War, mostly finishing in the lower half of the table, though an exception came with a third-place finish in 1929–30.

After the war, Bacup returned to the Lancashire Combination and won the league title in 1946–47. When a second division was added in 1947, the club was placed in Division One but was relegated after finishing bottom in 1948–49. Despite a sixth-place finish in 1954–55, Bacup was promoted back to Division One and remained there until the league reverted to a single division in 1968. The club finished as runners-up in 1972–73.

In 1982, the Lancashire Combination merged with the Cheshire County League to create the North West Counties League, and Bacup was placed in Division Three. When that division was abolished in 1987, the club moved to Division Two. A runners-up finish in 1989–90 earned promotion to Division One, where Bacup stayed until relegation at the end of the 1994–95 season.