Swindon Town

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Swindon Town
Swindon town (new) .svg
Basic data
Surname Swindon Town Football Club
Seat Swindon , England
founding 1879
Website swindontownfc.co.uk
First soccer team
Head coach Richie Wellens
Venue The Energy Check County Ground , Swindon
Places 15,728
league EFL League One
2019/20   1st place ( EFL League Two )
home
Away
Alternatively

Swindon Town (officially: Swindon Town Football Club ) - also known as The Robins - is an English football club from Swindon , which plays its home games at The Energy Check County Ground and after promotion from the 2020/21 season back to Football League One , the third highest division in England, is active.

history

1881-1945

The club was officially founded in 1881, although records exist that suggest that the club was founded two years earlier, in 1879. In 1894 Swindon Town joined the new Southern League as a founding member and played there until the outbreak of the First World War .

With Harold Fleming the club had a notable player at the time, who scored 202 goals in 332 games and completed nine international matches for the English national team during his playing career for Swindon Town between 1907 and 1924 . Even today, a statue in Swindon and the street named after him, Fleming Way, commemorates the successful footballer of the past.

In the 1909/10 season Swindon Town reached the semi-finals in the FA Cup and lost there to Newcastle United , which then also beat Barnsley FC in the final . Barnsley and Swindon were then invited to a meeting at the Prinzenparkstadion in Paris to play the so-called Dubonnet Cup . Two goals from Fleming secured Swindon the huge trophy.

The following season 1910/11 brought the first championship in the Southern League for Swindon Town, after which the club was allowed to play the charity shield game against Manchester United , the reigning champions of the Football League . In the Charity Shield game with the highest number of goals to date in England, Swindon lost 4: 8 to his opponent on September 25, 1911. Just a year later, Swindon Town again made it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they again lost to Barnsley in the replay. In 1914 Swindon were the second and final champions of the Southern League.

After the end of World War I, Swindon joined the Football League in 1920 as a founding member of the new Third Division and beat Luton Town 9-1 in the first game . This win is Swindon's best result in a championship game to date.

After the Third Division had become a regional Third Division South in 1921 , the club was able to establish itself there for a long time, whereby neither a promotion to the higher Second Division nor a relegation had to be accepted, although it was in 1933, 1956 and 1957 athletic last or penultimate places had to ask to remain in the third division.

During the Second World War , the majority of the players were drafted into the army and the county ground was used as a prisoner of war camp .

1945-1979

For Swindon, the post-war period was characterized by a steady stay in the lower English professional leagues. After the club was able to rise to the Football League Second Division with a second place for the first time in its history in 1963, the second division followed two years later. Nevertheless, the club had good coaches in Bert Head and Danny Williams , and after a 3-1 final win against Arsenal FC Swindon Town won the English League Cup in 1969, the first and only important trophy in the club's history. In the same year managed to return to the second division as runner-up behind the tied Watford FC . The two-time goalscorer in the league cup final Don Rogers was also instrumental in the 1970 3-0 win against SSC Napoli in the so-called "Anglo-Italian Cup", an Anglo-Italian cup competition . Swindon Town was also able to win the “Anglo-Italian League Cup”, in which the English league cup faced the Italian Coppa-Italia winners, when AS Roma were defeated 5: 3 overall. The club's record attendance dates from this period: on January 15, 1972, the FA Cup match against Arsenal FC attracted 32,000 spectators.

1980-1991

Swindon Town experienced its low point in 1982 with relegation to the fourth division and remained there until promotion as fourth division champions in 1986. This was followed by direct march through to the second division, as Swindon in the play-off for promotion first Wigan Athletic and then the FC Gillingham had turned off. The successful coach Lou Macari left the club in 1989 to look after West Ham United in the future . He was replaced by Osvaldo Ardiles . In his first season Ardiles succeeded with a technically greatly improved team on the play-offs of the sporting promotion to the First Division . But when Swindon Town had to admit a 36-fold violation of the rules of the Football League, as a result of which President Brian Hiller was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence and chief accountant Vince Farrar was sentenced to probation, the association downgraded Swindon to the third division. Even today, the song Swindle Town (in German - to swindle: "to swindle") is very popular with opposing supporters. Instead of Swindon Town, Sunderland AFC rose to the first and Tranmere Rovers to the second division. After a successful appointment , Swindon was able to avert relegation to the third division and was allowed to participate in the second division. The 1990/91 season turned out to be difficult and the club had to fear for staying in the class. After Ardiles then moved to Tottenham Hotspur in March 1991 , the club signed the internationally experienced Glenn Hoddle, a 33-year-old player- coach, who quickly led the team out of the relegation zone.

1991-1999

Swindon developed positively under Hoddle's reign and narrowly missed participation in the playoffs in 1992. In 1993, after a 4-3 win against Leicester City in the play-off final, they were promoted to the first division, which has been called the Premier League since 1992 .

Hoddle moved to Chelsea in the summer of the same year and his former assistant coach John Gorman took over as coach in Swindon. The club was never able to adapt to the high level in the Premier League 1993/94 , its only season in the top English division, and was relegated directly after only five wins. The 100 goals conceded this season mean a negative record in the Premier League to this day. Gorman was sacked in November 1994 after the club was back in the lower half of the table in the second division. The 33-year-old former midfielder from Manchester City Steve McMahon took over as coach, but could despite reaching the semi-finals in the League Cup does not prevent the other club relegation in series. The sale of the Norwegian striker Jan Åge Fjørtoft in the middle of the season to FC Middlesbrough was partly responsible for this decline, in the opinion of the supporters.

McMahon led the club straight away in 1996 as a third division champion back in the second division. The financial situation had deteriorated, however, so that McMahon was unable to put together a team that could play for promotion to the Premier League. When Swindon Town found itself again in the relegation battle, McMahon was sacked in September 1998 and replaced by Jimmy Quinn , who had led Reading FC to runner-up in the second division and the play-off final in 1995.

However, Swindon Town's financial problems continued into the 1999/2000 season and the continued existence of the club was only ensured shortly before the end of the season after a takeover by Terry Brady . The relegation to the third division could not be averted as bottom of the table, however. The new owner then put Quinn on leave and hired Colin Todd , who had led the Bolton Wanderers into the Premier League and now aroused high expectations in Swindon.

Since 2000

Old Swindon Town logo

Swindon got off to a weak start in the 2000/01 season and Todd joined the Derby County's coaching staff in November 2000 , while former assistant coach Andy King took over the role in Swindon for the remainder of the season. After relegation in the third division, the club did not extend King's contract and hired Roy Evans, a former Liverpool coach as technical director, and Liverpool defender Neil Ruddock as player- coach . Before Christmas , however, the duo left the club again (the expensive experiment with Ruddock, which was financially very damaging to the club, was named "Razorgate" after Ruddock's nickname "Razor"), so that Andy King took up his second term. He signed a substitute for Chelsea FC, Sam Parkin , who should develop into a top performer with 26 goals in the 2002/03 season.

Parkin was in the following season with Tommy Mooney, a former striker for the clubs Birmingham City and Watford FC. This storm duo was largely responsible for participation in the playoffs, but where Swindon lost in the semi-finals Brighton & Hove Albion after losing penalties .

In the 2004/05 season, the team placed in midfield of the league and Parkin was sold to Ipswich Town . King then signed the attackers Jamie Cureton and Tony Thorpe from the Queens Park Rangers , but neither of them made the breakthrough and thus could not completely replace Parkin.

After a changeable start in the 2005/06 season, King was dismissed and replaced by youth coach Iffy Onuora until the end of the season. At the end of the season Swindon was 23rd in Football League One and therefore had to relegate back to fourth division for the first time in 20 years. For the 2006/07 season, former national player Dennis Wise - together with Uruguayan Gustavo Poyet as assistant - was signed as the new game coach . With this team, the club immediately achieved six wins in the first six games and the championship lead. When Wise and Poyet surprisingly left the club for Leeds United in October of that year , Paul Sturrock took over the vacant coaching chair at Swindon Town after two interim solutions .

After Maurice Malpas had looked after the "Robins" between January and December 2008, Danny Wilson was the coach of Swindon Town since December 26, 2008 .

In May 2011, the Italian Paolo Di Canio took over the head coach position. He achieved immediate promotion to Football League One and was able to establish himself in the upper part of the table in the 2012/2013 season. After disputes with the old owners over player transfers and the expected sale of the club, Di Canio terminated his contract on February 18, 2013.

League affiliation

Web links

Commons : Swindon Town  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ coughtoffside.com [1] Paolo Di Canio Resigns as Swindon Town manager , February 18, 2013