A Decade of Enfield Town: The Pioneers of Supporter Ownership

In the summer of 2001, the Enfield Supporters’ Trust took a drastic step. By an overwhelming vote, its members chose to walk away from their club, Enfield FC, and build a new one from scratch. This act of supporter rebellion, born of frustration with owner Tony Lazarou and the club’s nomadic existence, created Enfield Town FC. It was a pioneering move, pre-dating the formations of AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester, yet it has become a footnote in the history of the movement it helped to start.

A decade on, as the club prepares to celebrate its anniversary, its story demonstrates that the virtues of passion and patience can yield their own rewards.

The original Enfield were non-league aristocracy. With eight Isthmian League titles, two Alliance Premier League championships, and two FA Trophies to their name, they were a club with a proud history. But the 1990s brought decline. Relegation from the Conference in 1990 was followed by near-misses for promotion. A league title in 1995 was cruelly nullified when promotion was denied over financial concerns.

The beginning of the end came in 1996 with the arrival of professional rugby union club Saracens at the club’s Southbury Road home. The ground-share was brief; Saracens departed for Watford’s Vicarage Road after a single season, leaving Enfield with a stadium compromised by temporary stands and unlikely to meet Conference standards ever again.

The Long Exile

By 1999, Southbury Road was sold. The club had no long-term plan to return to the borough. A sum of money from the sale was held by the council in an escrow account, intended for a new ground, but was eventually returned to the club's chairman after the threat of legal action. The club embarked on a homeless existence, playing at six different grounds, including St Albans and Ware, before settling into a long-term share at Boreham Wood. The combination of having no home and the £750,000 from the ground sale being in the chairman's hands was the final straw for the supporters.

And so Enfield Town was born. The new club found a home at Brimsdown Rovers’ Goldsdown Road ground and quickly found success on the pitch, winning the Essex Senior League twice in its first four years and earning promotion to the Isthmian League.

The original club, meanwhile, continued its slow decline at Boreham Wood, dropping into the bottom division of the Isthmian League before folding completely in the summer of 2007. A new club, Enfield (1893), was founded almost immediately to take its place in the Essex Senior League, inheriting the history of the defunct entity.

A Home of Their Own

Enfield Town’s progress stalled in Division One North of the Ryman League. It was clear the club needed to return to its home borough to re-engage with its potential fanbase. A site was identified at the QE2 Athletics Stadium, barely half a mile from the old Southbury Road ground. After a long wait, the local council finally gave its approval in October 2008 for the club to move into the dilapidated facility.

A considerable amount of work has followed. As their tenth anniversary arrives, Enfield Town are preparing to move into their new home. They will begin the next season ground-sharing at Cheshunt until the stadium is ready, but the return is imminent. It is an opportunity the club has been waiting for, a chance to win back a generation of supporters potentially lost during the decade-long exile in Brimsdown.

The move has had knock-on effects. With Town taking their own fixtures and fittings from Goldsdown Road to the QE2, the ground no longer meets the minimum requirements for the Isthmian League. Brimsdown Rovers had merged with Enfield (1893), and this new entity won the Essex Senior League last season. But due to the state of the ground they were set to inherit, they will have to spend at least one more season at that level. One final, ironic sting in the tail for the remnants of the old club.

An Overlooked Story

The existence of Enfield (1893) remains a barrier to uniting the borough’s football fans. Town have made requests for a merger to create a single club once more, but these have been rebuffed.

It is strange how often Enfield Town’s role in the supporters’ trust movement is overlooked. While no one can question the positive press coverage given to AFC Wimbledon and FC United, the first club whose supporters truly said “enough” has never received the publicity it deserves. Perhaps Town’s more modest ambitions do not create the same clean narrative as the stories of other fan-owned clubs. Their story, however, is one of the most important of all.

It is a story of quiet determination. While other clubs have enjoyed untrammelled success, Enfield Town’s has been a slower burn, a decade-long project to secure a sustainable future in their own community. The fire still burns brightly among the club’s supporters, who have proven that success can come in many different forms. This tenth anniversary is a testament to the dedication of those who refused to give up on their vision for a football club that is a credit to the London Borough of Enfield.

As the first chapter in the history of Enfield Town FC closes, a new one opens with the move to the QE2 Stadium. The question now is whether the people of Enfield will make that return worth the effort.