One half of the Non-League Wanderers podcast, James Sproston writes about his affinity for the Moss Lane outfit
Right off the bat, it’s best to mention that Altrincham are by no means ‘my club’. I’m not even from Altrincham, or any of its leafy suburbs for that matter. I’m from Lymm, and before you ask where in England’s green and pleasant land Lymm is, it doesn’t matter. Both my mum and my dad are Manchester City fans, so that’s that.
The Robins entered my life when I went to school in Altrincham, not too far from Moss Lane. As I say, leafy. I trained there and played there; then legendary gaffer Graham Heathcote became groundsman at my school. He even briefly became our football coach, but the lads weren’t too keen on his antique tactics and archaic training methods, so he retreated back to the lawnmower.
In that time, I sporadically attended Alty matches as a football fan rather than an actual Robins supporter, but it was only after leaving Manchester that my affinity with the club started to grow. Back-to-back relegations in 2016 and 2017 only cemented that love for a team that never failed to disappoint.
Cup kings and league losers
Altrincham are probably best known as your cliché FA Cup giant killers. GQ (yes, Gentlemen’s Quarterly) even called Alty ‘the greatest non-league team in FA Cup history’, though I imagine they weren’t in attendance when sixth-tier Blyth Spartans spanked Lee Sinnott’s Robins 4-1 on the Northumberland coast.
In their history, Alty have recorded 17 FA Cup victories against Football League sides, including becoming only the second non-league team to beat a top division team when they toppled Birmingham City in 1986. Since then, Alty have beaten Barnsley, Wigan, Chester and Lincoln, as well as having away days at Anfield, Old Trafford and White Hart Lane.
Part of that cult FA Cup status stems from the club’s inability to reach the echelons of the Football League. Despite Alty’s habit of underachieving in the league, back in the 80s they had a chance of joining football’s elite.
Up until 1986, the Football League was ringfenced. Winners of the top tier on non-league football, then called the Alliance League, had to apply for membership, while the bottom four teams had to re-apply. Current members of the Football League congregated in some musty village hall in the Midlands, and voted for the four teams to (re-)admit to the league that year.
Alty topped the division in 1980, and the subsequent election to the football league is one of the most infamous moments in the club’s history. The numbers tell us that the Robins missed out by one vote, receiving 25 to Rochdale’s 26, but that’s only half the story.
The legend goes that Alty had been promised two more votes, from the representatives of Grimsby and Luton Town. In this particular mildewed scout hut, the Grimsby vote was discounted because they were in the wrong part of the room, while the Luton representative was given the wrong start time and turned up late. Scandalous, if not sabotage.
The Robins again finished top of the Alliance League the following year, but this time were comfortably outvoted. Evidently, there was no appetite for little Altrincham to join the big boys, and they’d never come close again.
A football community built differently
A trip to Altrincham FC is very different to Ashton United. Now they’re both called the Robins, both are accessible on the tram, and both have the best scran in the non-professional game. But while the atmosphere at United was malcontent if not abusive, Alty couldn’t have been more different.
Most non-league clubs have a community of dedicated staff, fans and volunteers, but Alty’s community is built differently. It doesn’t reek of the male-dominated, performatively boisterous environment. One trip to the clubhouse during a Saturday game demonstrates that.
Instead, Alty is built on inclusivity. Its stadium has a raised wheelchair enclosure, a prayer room and free wi-fi for blind supporters to listen to radio commentary. It hosts pan-disability, walking football and table cricket sessions. It offers significant discounts to single parents, families and under-16s. The club even dons the iconic rainbow colours of the LGBTQ+ movement for a Football v Homophobia game each February.
Not only does that widen the net for fans of the club, it makes it a club you can be proud to be proud of. What more can you want?
We are Alty, my super Alty
Underwhelming, always underwhelming. Throughout my school years Alty regularly finished in the drop zone of what is now the National League, but were rarely relegated because other teams couldn’t afford to stay in the division. The boot, as it were, was on the other foot.
The only two memorable constants in those days were Graham Heathcote, before he started working at my school, and evergreen goal machine Damian Reeves. ‘Cote backed up 14 years as a player with another eight as gaffer, while Reeves bagged 63 goals in his first 79 starts for the club, including a 44-goal season in 2010/11. Stats for his entire seven-year stay at Altrincham are hard to come by, but trust me, he scored A LOT.
Relocating to Salford in 2018 allowed me to reconnect with the club, but opportunities to watch the team were few and far between when I left that Altrincham behind in 2014. Though I invested time in following the team’s results, my knowledge of players, gaffers and general ‘goings on’ waned.
A few outings with the Non-League Society in Newcastle had kindled a passion for the non-league game, and upon arrival back in the north west, it took myself and travelling pie connoisseur Alex Hendley to our ‘local’ club Salford City (it turns out, however, that Salford is a big and wet place).
Our subsequent outing was on a more pleasant autumnal afternoon. During my homecoming we saw a slick Alty dismantle a substandard Alfreton Town. But the best wasn’t on the pitch, it was off it. A tram journey with Gregg Wallace, Jim Bowen and Andrew Marr, and a halftime Big Alty Beef Burger made the experience truly memorable.
That year we truly fell for the quirks of non-league football, and having watched this calamity of a club clinch its promotion back to the National League just a few months ago, I can’t wait to go back.
Feature image: Twitter – @AltrinchamFC
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