Nickname(s) The Crabs Founded 1997 | ||
2015–16 Anglian Combination Premier Division, 11th | ||
Cromer Town F.C. is an English football club based in Cromer, Norfolk. The club are currently members of the Anglian Combination Premier Division and play at Cabbell Park. The current club was established in 1997 by a merger of the original Cromer Town and Madra United.
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Cromer Town
Cromer F.C. were first recorded during the 1898–99 season, when they were runners-up in the Norfolk Junior Cup. They won the competition in 1903 and entered the Norfolk & Suffolk League in the same year. In 1908–09 they won the league on goal average. In 1912–13 they won the Norfolk Senior Cup, a feat repeated the following season and again in 1920–21.
In 1937 they joined the Eastern Counties League. However, after World War II they returned to the Norfolk & Suffolk League. In 1964 they were renamed Cromer Town and joined the Anglian Combination, which had been formed by a merger of the N&SL and the East Anglian League. After a transitional season, Cromer were placed in Division One. They were relegated to Division Two in 1970 and Division Three in 1978.
Madra United
Overstrand F.C. originally played in the Norfolk & Suffolk League before joining the Anglian Combination on its formation. They won Division Three in 1969–70. They were promoted to Division One in 1971 and to the Premier Division in 1985. They won the title in 1991–92. In 1994 the club moved from Overstrand to Knapton and were renamed Madra United (Madra being an acronym for Mundesley and District Recreation Association, who owned the club's playing facilities).
Merged club
In 1997 the two clubs merged, creating Cromer United, which took Madra's place in the Premier Division of the Anglian Combination but played at Town's Cabbell Park. They were renamed Cromer Town in 2003 and won the Combination in 2003–04, 2005–06, 2010–11 and 2011–12, The Mummery Cup in 2002–03 and 2005–06 completing the league and cup double and also the Don Frost Cup in 2003, 2004, 2011 and 2012.
Ground
Cromer Town moved to Cabbell Park in 1922 after leaving Beef Meadow on Hall Road. The ground was named after Mrs Benjamin Bond-Cabbell, who donated the land to the town in remembrance of Cromer residents who died in World War I, and was opened on 6 September 1922. However, in 2009 the club learned that the bequest was a lease rather than a gift, and was set to expire 21 years after the death of Queen Victoria's last great-grandchild. That was King Olav V of Norway, who died in 1991, meaning that the lease will expire in 2012.