The history of Swindon Town F.C. stretches back to 1881 and earlier; the club has won League, National and International competitions in its history and played in the FA Premier League.
Foundation Swindon Town Football Club was founded by Reverend William Pitt between 1879 and 1881, with the club officially using the former date.
Confusion over the original date arose in the mid-1990s and continues to arouse controversy, with the club accepting the earlier date and then reverting to the original during the late 21st century. Former club statistician Paul Plowman researched the early history of the club during the period 1990–95 and discovered newspaper reports of a game in 1879 between Swindon Association Football Club and Rovers F.C.. The report and team photos show William Pitt playing for the team. Reverend Pitt, who was 23 at the time, was the curate of Christchurch, Swindon's central church. He was appointed Rector of Liddington church in 1881 and severed his ties to the club. Plowman was given the role of Swindon Town Retail Manager in 1995 and the kit for the 1995–96 season carried an "Est. 1879" tag, since removed. Further discoveries include an after-dinner speech at the Southern League championship celebrations in 1911 made by Reverend Pitt in which is recalled:
"It was in the autumn of 1879 that some young fellows belonging to the Swindon factory met with him in the King William Street Schools to organise a club. They decided to call it the Swindon Town Football Club, but they found the name rather a mouthful to shout out, so they changed the name to the Spartan Club. They played the first game in a field not far away."
"the rev. gentleman mentioned that his removal from Swindon caused his severance with the club."
In 1883 the Spartan Club renamed itself Swindon Town Football Club.
1881–1945: Early years
Swindon Town were an amateur club until 1894, playing friendly games against local teams before entering the FA Cup for the first time in 1886. The team also played in the inaugural Wiltshire Cup in 1886 and went on to win it in 6 consecutive years from 1886 to 1892.
On turning professional in 1894, Swindon joined the Southern League which was founded in the same year. After just four wins in sixteen games, the club finished bottom of the table—and were forced to play a Test Match against New Brompton to save their First Division status. In a match played at Caversham in Reading they were beaten 5–1, but gained a reprieve when the league was extended to eleven clubs for the following season.
Games were played at the County Ground from 1896, with the club entering the Western League in 1897 on the decision by the board to play more competitive games. Playing now in two leagues concurrently, Swindon lost form in the Southern League but became Western League champions in 1899.
The team resigned from the Western League in 1902 after finishing bottom of the table and continued to underperform in both League and Cup competitions until 1906 where they reached the first round of the FA Cup. The 1905–06 season saw the club also playing in the United League, again to play more competitive matches.
During the 1907 close season Swindon Town made two player signings that helped changed their fortunes, Jock Walker from Rangers and Harold Fleming. On 5 September 1908 their biggest record win was 10 goal to 2 over Norwich City. Fleming scored twice on his début for the reserve team and was included in the first team for their next game. He became the season's top scorer with 17 goals and helped Swindon progress to the third round of the FA Cup.
Fleming, a legend in the Town with a statue in the County Ground and a nearby road named after him, scored 202 goals in 332 games for Swindon between 1907 and 1924 and was capped eleven times for England.The Life & Times of Swindon's own England international thisiswiltshire.co.uk Communigate accessed 16 November 2006
In the 1909–1910 season Swindon reached the FA Cup semi-finals, losing to Newcastle United who subsequently defeated Barnsley in the final. Barnsley and Swindon were invited to compete for the Dubonnet Cup in a match played at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris. The result was a 2–1 victory for Swindon with Harold Fleming scoring both of the Town's goals. One of football's larger trophies, the Dubonnet Cup weighs in at nearly a hundredweight.
In the following season, 1910–1911, the team won the Southern League championship, earning them a Charity Shield match with the Football League champions Manchester United. This, the highest-scoring Charity Shield game to date, was played on 25 September 1911 at Stamford Bridge. Swindon scored four goals, while United managed eight. Proceeds from the sale of tickets at this game were donated to the survivors of the RMS Titanic sinking the following year.Medals to be sold Salisbury Journal 20 April 2005
In 1911–1912 the team again reached the FA Cup semi-finals, this time being knocked out by Barnsley after a replay.
Swindon became Southern League champions for the second and last time in 1914. After the end of the following season, representatives of all leagues met in Blackpool on 3 July 1915 and officially suspended football leagues owing to the outbreak of World War I.
The club continued to play friendly games against local opposition during the conflict and also against military teams from the Wiltshire Regiment of Royal Engineers and the Army Flying Corp. Lt Freddie Wheatcroft, a former Swindon centre-forward, was killed in action in Bourlon in November 1917. Wheatcroft was the only casualty for the club during the War.
The leagues restarted in 1919 and in 1920 Swindon entered the Football League as a founding member of Division Three and defeated Luton Town 9–1 in their first game of the season. This result stands as a record for the club in League matches. However, it would be more than 40 years before promotion was achieved.
In 1921 the Third Division became the Third Division South following the creation of a Northern section. Swindon were never promoted or relegated, although it did have to apply for re-election at the end of the 1932–1933, 1955–1956 and 1956–1957 seasons.
The club reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1924, a feat they have only matched only once since then, in the 1968–69 season. Another club cup record was set in 1925–26 when Swindon beat Farnham United Breweries 10–1 in the first round. The club's worst FA Cup defeat followed in the 1929–30 season, when they lost 10–1 to Manchester City.
Harold Fleming retired in 1924 and two years later, in 1926, Harry Morris, Swindon's greatest ever goalscorer, joined the club. In his first game on 28 August 1926, in which Swindon Town beat Southend United 5–1, he scored the first of eighteen hat-tricks. In his seven seasons at the club Morris was top goalscorer every year, accumulated 229 goals in 279 games and set four other club records that were still unbeaten nearly a century later.
Morris's final season with the club, 1932–33, was a difficult one, which finished with having to apply for re-election to the league after finishing bottom of the table. The team finished mid-table for the rest of the 1930s, with the period probably best illustrated with the two games over the Christmas period of 1938: Swindon played Newport at home on Boxing day and won 8–0; in the return match a day later the club lost 6–4.
1939–45: War years Three games into the 1939–40 season, the Football League was cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II. Swindon Town joined the Wartime South West Regional League and, owing to military call-ups, fielded a total of 46 different players during the season. These players included staff and wartime guests (such as Danny Blanchflower), with some retired players associated with the club also taking part.
At the end of the 1939–40 season, the War Department requisitioned the County Ground for use as a Prisoner-of-war camp, Swindon Town as a football club effectively ceased to be for the duration. The club's assets and players were sold or transferred until the season restarted.
Three Swindon Town F.C players—Alan Fowler, Willie Imrie and Dennis Olney—were killed in action during the war and are commemorated with a memorial inside the ground above the players tunnel.
1945–79: Era of success
The post-war era saw Swindon competing in the lower divisions of the English League, though in 1963 the club was promoted to the Second Division after finishing 2nd in Division 3 in season 1962–63. The club was relegated two years later. However the club found shrewd managers in Bert Head and Danny Williams. On Saturday 15 March 1969 Swindon beat Arsenal 3–1 to win the League Cup for the only time in the club's history.League Cup Final 1969 Match Report football-England.com accessed 16 November 2006Swindon Town 1969 TV Archive bbc.co.uk accessed 16 November 2006This year also saw Swindon go back to the Second Division after again finishing second in the Third Division on goal average with Watford and Swindon joint on 64 points. The scorer of two of the goals in the League Cup final, Don Rogers, was also in form to help Swindon beat SSC Napoli 3–0 to win the 1970 Anglo-Italian Cup. Swindon also beat AS Roma 5–3 over two legs to win the inaugural Anglo-Italian League Cup Winners' Cup.
1980–91: Fall and rise
Swindon reached their lowest ebb in 1982 when they were relegated to the Fourth Division, and did not leave the league's basement division until 1986 when they were Fourth Division champions. The club achieved a Football League record of 102 points in the season. A year later they won the Second Division relegation/Third Division promotion playoffs to achieve a second successive promotion.Manager Lou Macari left in 1989 to take charge of West Ham United. Veteran midfielder Ossie Ardiles replaced Macari and in his first season they were Second Division play-off winners.
However, Swindon later admitted 36 charges of breaching league rules (a scandal which saw their chairman Brian Hillier being given a six-month prison sentence and chief accountant Vince Farrar being put on probation) and were relegated to the Third Division — giving Sunderland promotion to the First Division and Tranmere Rovers to the Second Division. An appeal saw Swindon being allowed to stay in the Second Division.
Three weeks before the start of the 1989–90 season, The People published revelations that chairman Brian Hillier had put money on Swindon winning Division Three in 1987, as an insurance policy for player bonuses. Two months later the allegations worsened, with Hillier accused of putting money on the Town to lose in the FA Cup game at Newcastle United two years previously (which the team lost 5–0). Hillier was found guilty and was banned from football for six months, later increased to three years on appeal. Macari was fined £1,000 for his part in the scandal—and when he chose to appeal, West Ham United forced his resignation. The People released a third exposé in January 1990, this time alleging illegal payments to players. Despite this, Swindon Town beat table-topping Leeds United to go into third place in the league, and at the end of the season, they finished fourth, their highest league position ever, to go into the play-offs. Shortly before the last game of the season, Hillier, Macari, captain Colin Calderwood and secretary Vince Farrar were all arrested and questioned by Inland Revenue officials over a tax fraud conspiracy. Calderwood was released without charge, and the others were given bail. On the pitch, Swindon Town went on to defeat Blackburn Rovers over two legs to reach the final at Wembley, only their second appearance at the ground in their history.