Shock for Chairman Eric

AFTER a lifetime in Non-League football Stanley chairman Eric Whalley thought he had seen everything…until now!
 
With the Reds on the brink of promotion to the Football League even Whalley is having to pinch him self.
 
“I don’t know how we have done it,” he says. “After only being in the Conference for two-and-a-half years, it is the beginning of March and we are 13 points clear.  I can’t believe it but you have to. It is a fact, it is not fantasy.”
 
However it has come about Whalley still remembers the bitter pain the club and town felt when Stanley went out of the Football League more than 40 years ago.
 
“I still remember 1962 very clearly,” says the man who took over the chairmanship in 1995.
 
“Everyone was devastated. I think they always thought someone would come along and bale them out and clear the debts.
 
“That someone would do what clubs like Leicester and others have done — gone into liquidation and then come back to start afresh.
 
“Many clubs have been in the same situation as Accrington Stanley but never gone out the league as they have always been baled out.
 
“It was a big shock and a big story at the time. It was in every national newspaper. I have copies of the headlines on the sport pages but I just hope it is as big a story if we can back in the league.
 
Stanley have certainly been attracting a lot of attention and it sells stuff, we can get sponsors and we are selling out of merchandise.”

Stanley travel to struggling Crawley on Saturday looking to maintain their 13-point lead at the top of the Conference.