New Brighton Tower F.C.

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New Brighton Tower F.C.
Full name	New Brighton Tower Football Club
Founded	1896
Dissolved	1901
Ground	Tower Athletic Grounds, New Brighton (Capacity 80,000)
Chairman	New Brighton Tower Consortium

New Brighton Tower F.C. were an English football club based in New Brighton that folded in 1901. The club played at the Tower Athletic Grounds.

[edit] History

Like Liverpool, Chelsea and Thames, New Brighton Tower were formed to play at an already-built stadium, with a massive capacity of 80,000. The owners of the New Brighton Tower, a seaside attraction built to rival the Blackpool Tower, decided there was a need to provide winter entertainment, and had built a stadium adjacent to the tower. The football club was formed in 1896 to provide the entertainment, and joined the Lancashire League at the start of the 1897-98 season. After finishing as champions in their first season, the club were elected to the Second Division of The Football League when the League was expanded by four clubs. The team were very poorly supported averaging gates of 1,000.

The club signed a number of new players, including some who had played international football, and was reasonably successful, finishing 5th (out of 18) in its first season, and 4th in their third season. However, the cost of maintaining a professional football club became too high for the Tower's owners, and the club was disbanded in the summer of 1901, and replaced in the League by Doncaster Rovers.

In 1921, a new club was formed, New Brighton A.F.C., who would also play in the Football League from 1923 until 1951.

The tower was taken down during WWI, and the rest of the complex destroyed by fire in the late 1960s.