Amersham Town FC was founded on 13 October 1890 in the Crown Hotel Amersham, best known now as the location for the hotel scenes in “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. The chairman at that first General Meeting was the headmaster of Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, The Reverend E B Cooper. He had been recommended to the school by Dr W G Grace and was a capable all-round sportsman.
Also present at that meeting was the local blacksmith, a draper, a saddler, a grocer, a wood stapler and other local noteworthies.

The first set of rules for the club were approved on 17 October 1890. They included, amongst the usual regulations establishing the Committee and so forth:

i. that the club be called Amersham Town Football Club (its name to this day);

ii. that the subscription be one shilling and sixpence (7.5p in today's currency);

iii. the bad language on the field be strictly prohibited;

iv. that no member shall wear any nails, iron plates or gutter perches on the soles of his boots;

v. that the club colours be black and white (leading to their nickname “The Magpies”).

Squire Tyrwhitt Drake was elected President.

The first match, against Wycombe Marsh, was played on Barn Meadow in November. Amersham lost 1-2.

Over the following years up to the First World War the club thrived. Although it never had much money (another characteristic carried forward to this day) its first foray into the Berks and Bucks Junior Cup in 1892/93 was followed by entries into various local cups and leagues.

Other notable events were the arrival of the railway in 1892, which led to the creation of Amersham-on-the-Hill and extended the catchment area for fixtures, and Amersham Town winning the Wycombe and District Combination League in 1903. The latter was celebrated at a Smoking Concert, which might have caused the deficit on the accounts for that year of 11s 2d. By this time the club had also moved its base to the Eagle Public House which conveniently backed on to Barn Meadow.

The war robbed the club of some local players and supporters but in 1919 it was revived to win two league championships and reach the finals of three cups. In 1920, at a rental of ten pounds a year, the club leased Spratleys Meadow from Squire Tyrwhitt Drake. .

In 1929, as the depression started to bite, several players were laid off at Weller’s Brewery and on the Squire’s estate. But in the same year the Brazil boys (George, Ron and John), who were later to become keen supporters of the Club, built the Bowyers Pie factory on what is now the Tesco site.

In the 1930’s the club flourished. New dressing rooms were constructed at Spratleys Meadow. In 1935 a new stand was added, described by a local journalist as “roomy and lofty”.
But the war intervened.

During the second world war, at a rent of 12s a week, the new changing room were leased to the Council as an emergency mortuary. Shelving to take the bodies was inserted but, fortunately, never used. After the war the slow pace of demobilisation made it difficult for the club to re-establish itself but, by April 1946, it was again a going concern. In the same year it first entered the Spartan League.

In 1953 the club left the Spartan League for the newly formed Hellenic League. In the same year, George Brazil purchased the freehold of Spratleys Meadow from the Drakes and become President of the club. This was followed, in 1953/54, by one of the greatest seasons in the club’s history. The Magpies finished sixth in the League and were the first club to win the Hellenic League Cup. .

In 1960 George Brazil died and his brother, John, took over as club President. For many years the figure of John Brazil, leaning over the fence of Spratleys Meadow that abutted his garden was a familiar sight at matches.

19963/64 was another outstanding season for the Magpies as they were Hellenic League Champions, having been promoted from Division 1 to the Premier Division the previous season. Ron Leigh, who with his wife Janet, were to support the Club for the next thirty years, became Treasurer and in 1968 the Club purchased a second hand timber classroom from a private girls school as their first clubhouse.

But from then on it was mostly downhill for two decades. In 1970 the Annual General Meeting was abandoned for lack of support and this was reflected on the touchline. Indeed the Bucks Examiner commented “gates have never fallen at Amersham – they have never been there.” The club finished bottom of the Premier Division and drifted into debt. In 1972 the Club rejoined the Spartan League but success eluded it. In 1975 it suffered twenty three straight defeats in that League and the Manager, perhaps not surprisingly, resigned.

It is best to draw a veil over the next few years except to mention the stalwarts such as Horace Freeman (heralded in 1972 on ITV's ‘The Football Show’ as the oldest active worker in soccer at the age of eighty six), Bob and Hannah Cater and Jess Pearce, It was they and a few others who kept the Club alive in this period.

There were bright spots. In 1977 floodlights were installed at Spratleys Meadow and in 1983 a brick built extension and bar was added to the wooden clubhouse. But the brewery loan taken out to fund this only added to the debt. In the 1989 hurricane the old grandstand was blown bodily forty yards across the road into neighbouring allotments. The club struggled to survive.

Perhaps fittingly the start of Amersham Town’s renaissance coincided with its centenary in 1990. To celebrate the fact a booklet ‘A Hundred Years of Club and Town’ was published by Jean Archer, a local historian whose father had played for the club in its glory years after the war. Many of the facts in this feature are taken from that book. The youth section, founded by Colin Alexander and Mike Gahagan the previous year, began to establish itself in the South Bucks Star League.

Over the next few years, under the chairmanship of Mike Gahagan, Raymond Jones, Howard Lambert and David Holdcroft and long suffering Treasurer Alan Hayes, the club re-established itself. First the crushing burden of debt was reduced to manageable proportions and then eliminated entirely.. Then, agreement was reached with landlords, the Brazil Trust, for a new ninety nine year lease to run from the expiration of the current lease in 1998. Thus the future of the club was secured.

In the meantime Paul Pitfield, who had played for the club for several seasons, took over as reserve team manager. In 1994 he was promoted to first team manager.

In early 1997 a new stand was erected to replace the one destroyed by the gale. It was formally opened by Graham Taylor, the Watford, Aston Villa and England manager. He, as a friend of Howard Lambert, had several years previously agreed to be President of the club.

Although the club failed to finish sufficiently high in the table to make the Premier Division when the Spartan and Minerva South Midlands Leagues merged in 1997 it retained its senior status.

In 1998 a twenty one year lease was taken out on the same derelict allotments into which the stand had blown nine years earlier. Two years later they had been converted into splendid new pitches for the Youth Section.

In 2004 the club was awarded Charter Development status by the FA in recognition of the fact that it now provided teams for a wide range of agegroups together with the supporting infrastructure.

Two years later, following prolonged fundraising and with a grant from the Football Foundation ( whose name be praised ) the club demolished the old changing rooms and replaced them with excellent facilities. Under its then Chairman, Chris Mooney, and with the active support of Mike Gahagan and the treasurer, Lawrence Lipka, it also levelled the notorious eleven foot cross-slope on the pitch, replaced one half of the floodlights and refurbished the clubhouse. The transformatio of the club took everyone by surprise, not least the referees who were no longer expected to change in a room resembling a prison cell in a eastern Russia and run up and down a slope only slightly less acute than Snowdon.

In 2008 Lawrence Lipka took over as Chairman, Dale Welch as manager and a new committee was installed. One year later Simon Damery, who had assisted with the reserves, took over from Dale. With modern facilities, an active committee and a growing band of support the club looks forward to the future with confidence.

Berks & Bucks Junior Cup Winners 1922-23
Wycombe Challenge Cup Winners 1923-24
Hellenic League Cup Winners 1953-54
Hellenic League Division 1 Champions 1962-64
Hellenic League Premier Division Champions 1963-64
Hellenic League Premier Division Runners-Up 1964-65 & 1965-66
London Spartan League Runners-Up 1979-80
Berks & Bucks Senior Cup Semi-Finalists 1979-80 and 1980-81
St Mary's Cup Finalists 1989-90
St Mary's Cup Winners 1990-91
St Mary's Cup Finalists 1996-97
Under 18s Howard Cup Winners 1997-98
Spartan South Midlands Reserve Challenge Cup Finalists 1998-99
Spartan South Midlands Top Sportsmanship Trophy 1998-99