HISTORY
03 Dec 2007

The Beginning

We were founded in 1968 and our aim is to provide football facilities for boys and girls of all ages from 7 years to adults.

We are based in Morecambe, Lancashire where we have our own playing fields and changing rooms which can be found by either travelling along Westgate from the Shrimp roundabout and turning right at Westgate School into Langridge Way or by travelling down Regent Road from the West End Promenade, over the railway bridge and turning left into Langridge Way just before Westgate School. Once on Langridge Way, turn left just before the entrance to the caravan park and we can be found at the end of the road, turning right into the car parking area.

Westgate Wanderers were formed as one team of 15-year-old boys in 1968 by Mr. Albert Bardsley, a local policeman whose beat included the Westgate area at that time. The team played on a pitch marked out on a field along White Lund Road, which is now hidden under a small housing development and industrial buildings when the Vickers Industrial Estate expanded..Such is progress!. Word soon spread and soon there were boys of various ages asking to join in and so the club was formed as Westgate Wanderers.

At the time there was no recognized league in which to play so in 1969, the leaders of Westgate, along with friends and local councilors who created other teams in the area, formed themselves into a league. The league was to become the Lancaster, Morecambe and District Service to Youth League. The first few years were difficult with the Club being new and finding its feet in the community.

A change of ground from the initial field to the present home at Westgate Playing Fields helped to make the Club more secure. After the move to Westgate, the Club grew to three teams; U/12, U/14 and U/16 and was given a wooden cabin (what used to be John's Newsagents on Westgate near White Lund) to use as changing rooms, a cabin that would survive in use until late 1988. Since then the club has made do with a succession of caravans and portable buildings that have all provided short term temporary accommodation. However, not one of these was entirely suitable for the purpose (none had electricity or running water and all but the last wooden cabin have been far too small).

The club has been lucky enough to travel widely, not only in the immediate area in local competitions but to destinations more further afield. During the 1971 season, we were invited to visit 12th Precinct of Paris, which was then the twin town of Morecambe. That first visit, in the summer of 1972, was the start, for us, of a long series of twinning visits and tournament trips which still continues today. The photo on the right was taken in 1984 during our second visit to the 12th Precinct of Paris and shows our Under 12's team lining up on the all-weather pitch which was used for our games.

Since those first Paris twinning visits, we have been fortunate enough to have visited and hosted Clubs from numerous European counties for exchange visits including RTSV club in Rendsburg (W. Germany) and in particular Freja club in Aalborg (Denmark) with whom we have a special friendship.
The photo above is of our Under 12's team during our visit to RTSV Rendsburg in the Summer of 1980 and the photo below shows our Under 16's during a return visit to RTSV in 1984. On both occasions we were all hosted with families of the Club as were their players and officials during their visits to Morecambe.

In 1988 we helped form a friendly competition between twin clubs in Rendsburg, Aalborg, Karlskoga (Sweden) and Fredrikstad (Norway), (known as Friendly Youth Football). This was run for Under-14 boys with each club taking turn as host each year ending with Westgate hosting the event in 1992.

Since then our attentions have been to develop our facilities here at Westgate which were, and still are in some respects, sadly lacking behind the quality of those on the continent.