Club History

Founded in 1904 as Pilton Yeo Vale, the club entered the North Devon league. They were founder members along with Ilfracombe, South Molton, Pilton Social Barnstaple Y.M.C.A, Braunton and Bideford. Their first ever league Match was on 1st October 1904 when they played Ilfracombe at Pilton Park and were defeated 4-2.

The club changed its name to Barnstaple Town at the end of the season, and continued in the North Devon League, Devon & Exeter League and then the South Western League.

Team Photo 1920-21

Cup Winners 1931-32

When the Western League was reformed after the Second World War, Barnstaple Town entered two teams, one in division 2 and a reserve side in division 3.

The early 1950's were one of the club's most successful times under the management of Arthur Coles.
In 1953, Barnstaple won the Western league First Division Championship but only after a nail biting climax to the season with everything depending on the results of matches being played on the final day of the League Season.
On that day, Barnstaple Town beat Dorchester Town 6-1 and their challengers for the title, Street won 2-1 at Well City. That left the sides level on points and when the goal average was calculated Street had 2.07 and incredibly Barnstaple had 2.08.Rumour has it that most of the 3,000 crowd that watched Barnstaple beat Dorchester stayed behind at Mill Road after the match to await the Street result.

Melee Barnstaple goal action

Crowd against Bournemouth

Barnstaple Town also beat Plymouth Argyle in the final of the Devon Pro' Cup at Home Park that season, but sadly Coles moved on to Weymouth and the club never had quite the same success again.

Cameron Buchanan, the former Wolves and Bournemouth player, local lads Fred Smale and Ray Smith, Bill Johnson formerly of Grimsby Town, Noel Peyton, the ex Leeds United and Eire International, John Hancock formerly with Exeter City and ex Barnsley and Doncaster Rovers player Lol Chappell all tried to revive Barnstaple's fortunes from the managers seat but with no great success.

Charles Lake & Bill Johnson

Hitchman's attempt saved at Exeter

Player Manager Charlie Sells, who had been with Exeter City, built up the club in the 1970's followed by the former Andover keeper Trevor Morris and then Brian Perks. Perks left Mill Road for Bideford during the season of 1979/80 and under the guidance of joint managers Brian Hill and Dave Baglow, Barum went on to win the Western League Championship for the second time, winning by one point from AFC Bournemouth Reserves. That title went virtually unnoticed as there was a printers strike at the time and no newspapers were printed.

Richard Gray, the former Falmouth Town player, took over the following season and brought some success to the club although they never won the title. A couple of seasons later he left after a disagreement with the club, and after a succession of managers Town lost their Premier status in 1989/90. Brian Hill was again appointed manager to put Town back in the Premier Division and after 3 seasons in the wilderness won the First Division Championship in 1993/94 in fine style scoring more goals and recording more points than ever before.

Jimmy Hargreaves, Eddie Kelly, Phil Lloyd, Mark Jenkins and John Hore have all tried the manager's seat since but all without success.
Jeff Evans was appointed manager in 2002 and along with his assistant Peter Buckingham guided the club to the final of The Devon Bowl where they were narrowly beaten by Tiverton Town. Last season Peter Buckingham took over as sole manager and Barum finished in seventh place in the league, their highest finish for many a season.

A range of programmes through the years

In the FA Cup Barnstaple have reached the 1st Round Proper on four occasions, but have never progressed beyond that. In 1951 they drew 2-2 with Folkstone, but lost the replay 5-2. Three years later they lost 4-1 to Bournemouth before a record crowd of 6,200 at Mill Road. In 1959 they lost 4-0 to Exeter City in front of a crowd of 9,208 at St James Park, which gave Barnstaple record receipts for the match. Their last excursion was November 1972 when they went out of the competition in the First Round Proper losing 2-0 at Bexley on a quagmire of a pitch. That was after defeating the likes of Taunton Town, Bath City and Kings Lyn.

Town now enter the FA Vase instead of the Trophy and in 1995 reached the 4th Round losing at home to Arsley Town 2-0. Arsley went all the way to Wembley that year and won the FA Vase for the first time in their history.

Several Barnstaple Town players have progressed to League football. Harry Scott went to Middlesborough in the 1950s and John Neale moved to Exeter City. The club received a record transfer fee of £6,500 from Bristol City for Ian Doyle. Geoff Wake and Barry Vassallo went to Torquay United in the 1970s. The most noted local players were Len Pickard and Pat Fewings. Len went to Bristol Rovers in 1951 then he spent three seasons with Bradford Park Avenue before returning to the South West and Southern League Bath City. Pat Fewings joined Torquay United in 1953.

The club is believed to have paid out a record fee of £4000 when signing striker Joe Scott from Hungerford Town.

John Clarke