|
Cheadle Town was formed in 1961 as Grasmere Rovers playing in the Manchester & District Sunday Football League in their Under 16’s Division. The club progressed into the Open Age scene and joined the Manchester League on Saturday’s in 1972. Success on the playing field coincided with the arrival of Albert Pike as manager as the club won both the Manchester & Derbyshire F.A. Cups. Promotion was also gained into the First Division of the league.
In 1982 Grasmere moved into their own ground at Park Road Stadium and a year later changed their name to Cheadle Town when they also joined the North West Counties Football League. Membership has mainly been in the Second Division but in 1996 the club was promoted to the First Division. Sadly relegation back to the Second Division occurred in 2001 but under new management the club aim to bounce straight back into the top flight.
Park Road Stadium has a fine history with initially Cheadle Rovers being the owners. On their demise Manchester City used it as their training ground. Portugal, along with Eusebio trained their for the 1966 World Cup and in 1993 world famous Brazilian player Jairzinho hosted a Soccer School for Cheadle Town.
The club of course is famous for its foreign tours and has a record of playing 96 games in 30 different countries in front of over 312,000 people, scoring 111 goals. Playing under the Manchester A.F.C. banner they have played 7 National sides and have played in front of 65,000 people in the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City. The journeys have taken the club just over 200,000 miles all over the world.
Alfredo di Stefano, Ronnie Biggs and Rajiv Ghandi have all met the touring side as exotic locations such as Cannes, Acapulco, Rio de Janeiro, the Bahamas and Phuket have mixed with non exotic places like Dar es Salaam, Haiti and Guangzhou in China.
The club has celebrated its 40th birthday and if the next 40 years are anything like the first, then there is a lot of excitement to come.
|
