Winchmore Hill Football Club
Winchmore Hill Football Club is an amateur football club based in north London, United Kingdom. The club was founded in 1920, and play their home games at The Paulin Ground in Winchmore Hill.[1] The club competes in the Southern Amateur League, notably winning the Senior Division 1 title on nine occasions. [2] The football club is a sub-section of Winchmore Hill Sports Club, which also has playing facilities for cricket, hockey, lawn tennis, and table tennis.
 | |
| Full name | Winchmore Hill Football Club |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1920 |
| Ground | The Paulin Ground, London N21 3ER |
| League | Southern Amateur League |
| Website | Club website |
Club History
Winchmore Hill Football Club was founded in 1920 as a self managing section of Winchmore Hill Cricket Club (a structure change in 2013 renamed the parent club as Winchmore Hill Sports Club), although a Winchmore Hill village team was in fact previously formed in 1898 under the Presidency of Mr W T Paulin, and some members of the cricket club played for the team. However they had their financial difficulties and lost their ground in 1903 before moving to another site and played continuously until 1913/14 season when it then ceased to exist at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.
Returning cricket members after the war persuaded other members to form a scratch football side to play on a wandering basis, and then on 16 May 1920 at St Paul’s Institute, the constitution of Winchmore Hill Football Club was decided upon. An invitation to play at the Paulin Ground - the home of Winchmore Hill Cricket Club - was accepted for a fee of £15 for one pitch.
Games for the first year were on a friendly basis, mainly in north London, and the following year they applied for league status and entered the Middlesex County Amateur League with two teams. Changing facilities were spartan with the cricket club’s small pavilion being used by the football club, whilst visiting teams were housed in round corrugated iron sheds. The rent was £25 a season, raised soon after to £30 upon the opening of the new pavilion.
In 1922/23 the 1st XI team entered ‘B’ Division of the Southern Olympian League together with the AFA Senior Cup. Early playing difficulties were overcome during the 1920s and the first trophy arrived when the 1st XI won the AFA Middlesex Senior Cup in 1926/27, and the league title the following year. The die was cast, and soon after the club were elected to Division III Senior and Junior of the Southern Amateur League, with the addition of a 3rd XI team, and this has remained our league competition to the present day.
Although the 1939/45 war brought competitive football to a halt, the club nevertheless continued to function: to provide a game for serving members on leave: to attempt to fulfill its obligations to the parent club: to provide an opportunity to friends and visitors to watch a game and share the amenities of the clubhouse: lastly to keep, if possible, the structure on which to build a more flourishing club once happier times returned. This led, in 1950, to the need for a new constitution together with the re-formation of a ladies hockey section, plus the suggestion that the football club should cease to be a self managing section. At the AGM of the parent club on 29 January 1950, the new constitution was approved and the football club became a fully integrated section of the parent club, and with effect from 1st October 1950 it enjoyed equal status with the cricket and other sections.
The platform was laid in the early post war years, and in the late 1940s and early 1950s the club enjoyed its ‘purple patch’ with the 1st XI winning six championships in nine years, and the club quickly went from strength to strength with more members, more teams, and more trophies. Over the decades we have enjoyed tremendous on field success and the club has grown to comprise seven competitive teams now playing on Saturdays in league and cup competitions under the governance of the Amateur Football Alliance. We also have two veterans teams playing on Sunday mornings.
The club colours of purple black and white were well entrenched in the playing kit, and in 1957 a sub-committee of all playing sections designed a club badge which incorporated deer (which links it to the Arms of the Borough of Southgate) as well as the great Cedar Tree, which overlooks the top of the front of the ground, together with the New River which also bounds the top of the ground. The motto was added, ‘Amicitia Per Ludos’ which translates to ‘Friendship Through Sport’.
In the early days the club had just the one pitch at the top of the ground near the New River, and the present pavilion which was built in 1923 has undergone several modernisations and extensions over the years. As post war expansion began, the 1st XI moved to a newly created pitch in 1946/47, more or less where the current centre pitch is, with the lower teams playing on the top pitch. In 1948 a Ground Development Committee produced a five year plan which extended the tennis courts, re-sited the car park, and produced a third football pitch for the 1948/49 season. In the 1960s, as the number of teams grew, an additional pitch was hired from the local council at nearby Firs Farm and this remains the case today.
In 2006 an ambitious project partly funded by the Football Foundation, the English Cricket Board, and an inheritance from past long term member Alan Bacon, saw the provision of four new cricket nets for the cricket section and a floodlit astro training facility for football and hockey known as a MUGA (Multi Use Games Area). This has transformed the training and coaching for adult and youth alike, and has become the most intensely used facility at the club.
The earliest recorded youth teams arrived with the formation of a junior section from 1958 to 1963 for under 16s and 18s, but this came to a halt in that final year following the big freeze of the 1962/63 winter. For the next 30+ years various youth teams played under the colours of the club in local youth leagues but without any formal framework or governance from the adult football section.
This was all to change in the late 1990s when the football club committee resolved to bring the five then current youth teams within the administrative control of the club. A youth committee was formed and a new financial system adopted, to ensure all youngsters became members of the club. Playing kit was standardised as far as possible, and external floodlit training facilities were found to accommodate all teams.
The club now have a fully integrated youth section which is flourishing with a thirty strong development group, and teams playing from under-9 to under-18.
Honours
Southern Amateur League Senior Division 1 Champions: 1947-48, 1948-49, 1950-51, 1951-52, 1954-55, 1955-56, 1967-68, 1983-84, 2014-15
Southern Amateur League Senior Cup Winners: 2018
AFA Senior Cup Winners: 1953, 1960, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2012
AFA Senior Middlesex and Essex Cup Winners: 1993, 2012, 2014
Numerous other league titles and cups have been won by lower level Winchmore Hill FC teams. A full list can be found on the club's website. [2]
Teams
Winchmore Hill FC field seven senior men's teams on a Saturday afternoon, two vets teams on a Sunday morning, and a number of youth teams on both Saturdays and Sundays. All adult Saturday teams play in the Southern Amateur League, and partake in the SAL and AFA cup competitions.