Early Years
08 Aug 2008

During the formative years and during the two World Wars the Club was disbanded and reformed on a number of occasions. The Club played in a number of leagues with some success during the intervening years but the Club really came into its own in the 1960s after it took in the players of the Admiralty Gunnery Engineering Department which had for years been based on Ashton Old Road in Openshaw and was at this time closing down. Alf Gentry was at this time was manager of Abbey but decided that with the influx of the new players he would step down in favour of the manager of AGED. Danny Danson who went on to have great success with the team. Alf who had been for years the prime mover of the Club stayed on in a senior position within the Club for many years to share in the success that the Club would have in coming years.

The new players and manager made up the backbone the club during the 1960s with some of the players staying on for years after their playing careers had ended, notably Allan Vaughan who occupied the positions of treasurer, and secretary as well as running the Vets team for many years.

Ken Brown also stayed on as manager after Danny retired with some great years winning numerous honours culminating in 1978 the Club decided to apply to apply for a position in the Manchester League.

The application was successfull and the following year the Club began playing in 2nd. Division of The Manchester League which they went on to achieve promotion in their first season.

Reaching this position meant that the Club had to find an enclosed ground suitable for playing their home games.

The nearest ground available at this time was in fact miles away in Chorlton on St. Werburghs Road. The ground was owned by a car dealership and was being used by a local school. It was agreed that if we carried out some work on the dressing rooms such as installing showers etc we could rent the ground. This we did which was to be the start of our many successfull years in this League winning the Premiership title five time as well as coming runners up on numerous occaisions together with winning many cups.
After two years Lookers renaged on the deal and the club was once again compelled to move this time to a ground much nearer home named after a prominent Council luminary Godfrey Erman who donated the Ground to the local populous of Abbey Hey in perpituity for their use as a recreational area.

The next eighteen years were fairly succesfull with the Club winning the Gilgryst cup under manager Jim Whittaker and the League title and the Gilgryst cup under Dave Denby.

After many years on Godfrey's Abbey were told that as from the start of the new season they would not be playing on the ground, this was despite the large ammounts of money and hard work they had expended on drainage as well as the fact that when they had taken over the derelict ground they had been assured that as long as Abbey Hey had a football team this would be their ground.(so much for a Gentlemans word). This decision was based mainly on greed as the Club was never asked if they wanted to pay more rent nor were they ever involved in any discussion whatsoever about the future of the ground. what had happened was that a very large local Company had come in and offered £10,000 to use the ground which the people who looked after the ground on behalf of the local residents jumped at. Once again the Club was forced to move or fold. By the way the ground was never used for serious Football from that date to this and now lies there empty and once again derelict.

A new home at the old English Steel ground was arranged on a season to season basis with the owners who were at this time Clayton Analine. After only two years the ground was sold to a large local builder who required the land to build houses on.

However during during the two years the Club had been on the ground they were also in negotiations with Crossley Motors Ltd to buy a dissused ground they owned in Goredale Avenue, Gorton. This ground was not in very good order and was becoming a bit of an eyesore with all the fences falling down and people using it for fly tipping in fact a contractor working for the Council had tipped a thousand Tons of hardcore onto the car park so preventig any one getting into the ground never mind parking on it.

Matters had reached an impasse between the Club and Crossleys when Manchester City Council stepped in (no doubt fed up with the mess that the place was getting into) and told Crossley's that if they did not reach an agreement with the people that they were dealing with (which was AHAFC) the ground would be the subject of a compulsory purchase order. This seemed to tip the scales in favour of the Club who were asked to make an offer for the ground which they did and which was promtly accepted.

Legal representation and a bank loan were quickly arranged and at last the Club had their own home, one of the very few clubs in the Manchester area to own their own ground.

Jim Clark was to join the Club during these turbulent
times as manager of the first team a position he was to occupy for the next eighteen years with fantastic success. Jim managed to win the Manchester League Premier League Championships Five times as well as numerous cups and honours for the Club.

Over the next twenty years the bank loan was paid off and the ground was improved beyond all recognition this included having the previously mentioned fly tipped hardcore from the ground. These improvements to the ground could have only have been achieved by the very hard work and dedication of the committee who not only raised the money to carry out the improvements but also got their hands dirty and carried out ninty per cent of the actual physical works themselves.

In 1997 the Club applied for membership of the North West Counties League which after a ground grading visit by the League Officials the Club was accepted to their seconed division. In the Clubs first season Jim Clark managed to clinch the runners up spot after a fantastic finishing day of the season when the Club had to win to earn promotion. This they did and were promoted to the first Division at their very first go.

Promotion meant that the Club had to instal floodlights to the ground and the Club true to form had them designed, ordered, erected and wired within a couple of months with all the forgoing work being carried out in house.

The biggest job during the ground improvements was the building of the new clubhouse and dressing rooms which were required as the old ones were constantly being damaged by the local vandals a curse that still continues to this present date.

Planning permission was obtained and the work was started once again the vast majority of it being carried out by our own club members. To finance this project low interest loans were taken out from the FA the remainder of the money being earned by the Club members through fund raising schemes etc. It is only recently that the job is at last nearing completion with a finish date of Christmas 2007.

In 2004 Ten members of the committee were awarded long service awards for their 25 Years in the service of Grass Roots Football by Manchester County FA