| The Railwaymen were
founded by men who worked for the railway who previously played rugby
and cricket in 1877. Their name was taken from an amalgamation of
the town's name and the high regard in which they held Alexandra, the
Princess of the time. There was a controversial incident when they
played the Swifts in 1888, when they claimed the crossbar was 2"
too low. A replay was ordered, but Crewe were censured because
they had measured the height before the match and only chosen to
complain after the result had gone against them !! They had some
early success when reaching the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 1888, but
Alex's fall from grace was swift - dropping out of the League altogether
from 1896 to 1921. This included the 1894-95 season when they went
the whole course without gaining an away point.
The club were finding the going
tough, but still managed to be founder members of Divs. 2, 3 (North) and
4. In 1924, they took part in a match against Bradford where there
were four penalties awarded in just five minutes of play.
Amazingly, only one was scored, but they had to repaint the penalty
spots at half-time as they were becoming obscured. The 30's had
highs and lows. The main stand burnt down and there were two Welsh
Cup wins in 1936 and 1937.
Not much of note occurred for a
number of years, apart from going 30 games without a win in 1956-57 and
then they were drawn against Tottenham in the FA Cup 4th round in 1960.
A creditable 2-2 draw meant a replay at White Hart Lane, which the team
travelled to by train arriving at Euston on platform 13 and going home
from platform 2. They lost the replay by 13-2. They did
manage to get through the 1967-68 season without losing at home though.
Goals were hard to come by for
a considerable time. The first hat-trick in four years won Peter
Coyne a colour TV in 1980 and he later scored another to win a unit to
house it in ! A local garage was on a fairly safe gamble when they
offered a car to any player who scored 30 goals in the 1982-3 season,
especially as the whole club had only scored 29 the previous term
! It was at the end of that season that Dario Gradi arrived as
manager and he is still there today, having turned the club into a solid
outfit, with a reputation for playing good football and producing a
string of talented young players. Much of the club's success has come
during his tenure with Wins in the play-off to go into the First
Division in 1997 (after having identical records for seasons 1995-96 and
1996-97) and a spanking 8-0 victory over Hartlepool United in the Auto
Windscreens Shield with each goal scored by a different player. It
looked like he had solved the scoring problem against a team that Crewe
have played so many times, no other two clubs have met more often.
More recently the club have
entered an agreement with Liverpool to exchange young players. The
original alliance was to be with Leicester, but that couldn't be
brokered. There are two strange things about Crewe that you should
know though. They have never had a record made about the club and
there is a phenomenon that was known as the "Gresty Clap" -
not a nasty sexually transmitted disease, but an appreciation of good
play by the Alexandra fans.
FAMOUS PLAYERS : - Bert
Swindells, David Platt, Geoff Thomas, Eric Cheets, Bill Lewis, Terry
Harkin, Bruce Grobbelaar, Rob Jones.
FAMOUS FANS : - Rob Cieka
(Musician - The Boo Radleys), Gwyneth Dunwoody MP. |
