Accrington
Stanley: The Club That Wouldn't Die, by Phil Whalley (2006)
WHEN Accrington Stanley went bust in the early 1960s, it had a seismic effect on English football.
Unlike now, when there is promotion and relegation between league and non-league football, teams only resigned from the League as a last resort and Stanley's demise, basically because they could not afford to pay their gas bill, was a huge story.
After being resurrected in 1968, Accrington Stanley stumbled around the lower leagues in Lancashire until the early 1990s when the astonishing climb back to the League began.
This season, Stanley won the Conference by 11 points and the supporters' dreams came true. Writer and long-time supporter Phil Whalley has talked to the club's charismatic chairman, his namesake Eric Whalley and the club's long-serving manager John Coleman, plus supporters and club employees who were there in the bad old days.
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