Crewe Alexandra were formed in 1877 as Crewe Football Club as a separate organisation from the successful Crewe Cricket Club. Crewe Football Club played their first ever match, against North Staffs, the same year, the match ended 1-1. In 1884, Crewe Alexandra's first match in the FA Cup was against Queens Park of Glasgow, losing 10-0. In 1888, Crewe reached the FA Cup semi-finals, defeating Derby County and Middlesbrough en route, before going out to Preston North End.
Crewe were one of the founding members of Division 2 in 1892, having previously been members of the Football Alliance, but became a non-league side after only five seasons. The following year the club managed to sign all their players as professionals. They rejoined the Football League in the 1920s, during which time a new record of 15,102 packed into Gresty Road to watch Crewe entertain local rivals Stoke City. The Potters won the game 2-0. Crewe earned their first honours by winning the Welsh Cup in 1936 and 1937, before being barred from entering (not least since they were not in Wales). In 1936, Herbert Swindells scored his 100th League goal for Crewe Alexandra. He would go on to score a record 126 goals for the club - a record that still stands today.
1955 saw Crewe embark on a sequence where they did not win away from home for 56 matches. The dismal run ended with a 1-0 win at Southport. One of Crewe's most famous matches took place against Spurs in the FA Cup. A new record attendance of 20,000 saw lowly Crewe hold Spurs to a 2-2 draw. Bert Llewellyn and Merfyn Jones scored for the Railwaymen. In the replay, Tottenham won convincingly 13-2 - still a record defeat for the club. Llewellyn and Nev Coleman scored for Crewe at White Hart Lane.
1961 saw Crewe's most notable win in their history, Jimmy McGuigan's side defeated Chelsea 2-1 in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge. That particular Chelsea side contained the former Crewe player Frank Blunstone as well as the likes of Jimmy Greaves, Peter Bonetti and Terry Venables. The Crewe goals were scored by Billy Stark and Barrie Wheatley. Spurs won by a more modest 5-1 in the Fourth Round. In 1963, Crewe gained promotion for the first time in their history with a 1-0 win over Exeter City. Frank Lord became the local hero, scoring the only goal in front a crowd of 9,807. Lord also holds the record for most hat-tricks for the club - he amassed eight hat-tricks during his time at Gresty Road.
A year later, Terry Harkin scored a record 35 league goals for a season. 1977 saw Tommy Lowry play his record-breaking 475th and last game for the Railwaymen. 1979 would see manager Warwick Rimmer's most notable signing when Bruce Grobbelaar joined Crewe and played his first match against Wigan Athletic. During the season he would score from the penalty spot against York City and kept 8 clean-sheets in his 24 matches played. In the same year the club went a record 15 matches without winning at Gresty Road. The period from the 1950s to the early 1980s were generally not a successful time for the Alex, and few would have argued with Michael Palin's comment, in the 1979 BBC Great Railway Journeys of the World documentary when, in a shot over Gresty Road filmed from the roof of the adjacent Rail House he described Crewe as "like those other railway towns, Swindon and Doncaster, possessed of a football team which is perpetually propping up the bottom of the Fourth Division". Indeed, between 1894 and 1982, Crewe finished in last place in the Football League eight times. Its eight last-place finishes are the most of any league club.
It is believed that Crewe's fans were the first ever to sing the famous football song "Blue Moon" (with lyrics that do not quite match the Rodgers and Hart original). The song was sung to represent the gloomy days at Gresty Road during the mid-1900s and also reflects the colour of the Alex away strip which only the more steadfast and determined fans would travel to see. Since then Manchester City have copied the chant and it is often sung by their fans.
In June 1983, Crewe appointed Milan-born Dario Gradi as manager. At that time, Crewe had again just avoided being voted out of the Football League. Gradi quickly gained a reputation for developing young talent, Gradi let Steve Walters become the youngest ever player to pull on a Crewe shirt: aged just 16 years and 119 days he played against Peterborough United on 6 May. Gradi's efforts paid off in 1989 when Crewe won promotion to the Third Division. They went back down two years later, but were promoted again in 1994. In the same year, Neil Lennon became the first Crewe Alexandra player to gain an International cap for 60 years when he was selected to play for Northern Ireland against Mexico. Gradi then led his charges to the unprecedented height of Division One in 1997, after victory over Brentford in the Division Two playoff final, and kept his team there until 2002, despite a club income on which many more lowly clubs could not survive.
After one season in the Division Two the club were promoted back to Division One at the end of the 2002-03 season, having finished in second place; the first time the club had finished in the top two of any division.
Although managing to retain their place in the renamed Championship in the 2003-04 season, at the start of the 2004-05 season they were rated one of the likeliest teams to be relegated. In the event, they put in a good showing in the first half of the season, but after selling Dean Ashton to Norwich City for a record £3 million in the January 2005 transfer window, Crewe failed to win any more games until the final match of the season, when they defeated Coventry City 2-1 and narrowly escaped relegation on goal difference, Crewe having a GD of -20 and Gillingham -21.
The following year they were not so fortunate. Despite a good run towards the end of the season, they were relegated to League 1 at the end of the 2005-06 season.
Crewe were named the 'Most Admired Club' in the 2006 Football League Awards, sponsored by The League Paper and FourFourTwo Magazine.
Prior to their 3-0 home defeat to Bradford, the club learnt that their previous chairman, Norman Rowlinson, had died of cancer at the age of 83. The club then held a minute's silence for Rowlinson at their next home game, against Huddersfield Town.
As of the summer of 2007, Gradi was the longest serving manager in English league football; he celebrated his 1,000th game in charge of Crewe on 20 November 2001 - an away fixture at Carrow Road, the home of Norwich City F.C., and completed 24 years in sole charge of the club, although assistant manager Neil Baker took temporary charge between 22 September and 17 October 2003 while Gradi underwent heart surgery. Crewe only managed one point while Baker was in charge.
During Gradi's control, the club gained a strong reputation for its youth policy, and gained official status as an FA Youth Academy. By concentrating on developing its own players the club remained profitable (a rare thing in lower division football at the time) by selling them on after they have gained experience with Crewe. The Academy is known to stress technical excellence, which accords with Gradi's aim to have his sides play attractive, passing football.
Players who passed through the ranks at Crewe include the England international players Geoff Thomas, David Platt and Rob Jones, Welshman Robbie Savage, and Northern Ireland internationals Neil Lennon and Steve Jones (Platt was the most successful, totalling more than £20 million in transfers and captaining the England team). All these were youngsters signed from other clubs, but Gradi also had considerable success in nurturing Crewe's own trainees - notably full England internationals Danny Murphy, Seth Johnson and Dean Ashton and Wales international David Vaughan.
On 20 April 2007 Crewe Alexandra announced that, as of 1 July 2007, Gradi would take up a new role as the club's Technical Director whilst gradually allowing newly appointed first-team coach Steve Holland control of the team.
Holland's first season in this role, 2007-08, was a disappointment as the club narrowly avoided relegation after finishing 20th with 50 points. [1] That summer Holland spent half a million pounds on new signings with Calvin Zola and Anthony Elding suspected of accounting for the bulk of the money spent. He also brought in new goalkeepers for outgoing Ben Williams and Owain fon Williams in the form of Steve Collis and Adam Legzdins. For the entire summer striker Nicky Maynard was rumoured to be also on the way out of Gresty Road, but this proved not to be the case – until it was announced that Bristol City had bought him for a club record fee of £2.25 million. However, despite a positive pre-season, including a win over Premiership club Hull City, these changes to the team did not help in the league, with the team taking only 9 points from the first 16 games.
Following pressure from fans the board relieved Steve Holland of his duties as first team coach. This left the position of manager open, and with a league game approaching, the club took the opportunity to re-appoint Gradi as caretaker manager until a new manager was found. Gradi's first game back in charge was a 3-0 defeat at home to local rivals Stockport County. On 24 December 2008 the Icelandic former manager of local rivals Stoke City, Gudjon Thordarson, was appointed as Holland's successor, though Gradi remained in charge of the team for a further six days – and he oversaw the club's first away win of the season, 4-1 at Hartlepool. Thordarson's first game in charge was a 2-2 draw away at Millwall in the FA Cup 3rd round, while Gradi resumed his role of Technical Director, but although Thordarson received the Manager of the Month award for February, the team then went on a poor end-of-season run, in which they did not win for 10 games, and were relegated back down to League Two. |