DUDLEY Town are a football club with a history. They’re not alone, there are many clubs in today’s climate clinging on to the edge of existence, fearing for their very survival, but ultimately, fighting for a way out of the abyss, writes Lewis Cox.

They were a borderline household name for many a Midland football fan of the previous generation, growing up in the 70s and 80s when the grassroots game would bring local punters through the gates – desperate to see a taste of the action. This was before the likes of Sky, the Premier League and BT ensured the gap between them and the top continued to grow astronomically.

If you are a punter interested in the local game – at whatever level – and wondered why such a club, of a strong following has gone off the radar, don’t fear. The club are still together, still aiming high, still attempting to represent a proud town.

Now operating in the West Midlands Premier Division, the tenth tier of English football, they fight on a regular basis just to stay afloat, as club chairman Stephen Austin explains, things aren’t just as they used to be.

“Forty years I’ve been involved with the club, growing up through the brilliant times this club had, at the very top of the non-league game, it was a pleasure for the whole community.

“It had Dudley on the map, we were fighting in the Southern Premier League, had some of the best facilities in the area and even the country for our level.

“The game has changed, at all levels, the times have changed, I remember 1,500 flooding through the gates when we had a stable ground, a home, in the centre of the town.

“Now we struggle to get 50 here, it’s a real struggle. But that is the position we’re in and club will continue to function.”

How it continues to function at that kind of level is testament to the personnel involved, Austin concedes, the revenue and numbers through the doors dwindle, but hard work and know-how allow the club to continue entertaining supporters.

“Back then we were a huge attraction, we had people coming from afar in the county to watch us because Dudley Town were a club moving forward," he added.

“We had a difficult spell, for a while we didn’t have a home of our own, lost that bit of identity and fell through the leagues.

“Now, we just work on the very short-term basis of keeping the club afloat and making sure they are playing football the following season.”

One of the more drastic changes over the years for the club has been the removal of their home. The ground that played host to the Robins for much of their existence was damaged and eventually shut down during the mid-eighties, leading to a period full of different venues.

Since the summer of 2007, their home has been the Dell Sports Centre, of nearby Brierley Hill, somewhere affordable as the club look towards sustainability.

“Of course we miss having a home in the middle of the community, it’s a huge area, very modernistic, with brilliant opportunities to advertise and market the club to the general public.

“But we are very grateful to our current home, and we don’t see any reason why the short-term future would be away from here.

“We’ve ground shared in recent times at the likes of Tividale and Stourbridge, clubs at a higher level of the grassroots game than us.

“We understand what it’s like to not have a home, to be playing on someone else’s patch and that is not what Dudley Town needs, it needs somewhere that can be related to and called a home.”

It is sad, that a club like Dudley Town, with well over 100 years of proud history, has somehow fallen along the wayside and lost a bit of local identity.

I proceeded to ask Austin what drove the club’s members on and what kind of future they could see for the club.

“First of all, I can see a lot of clubs that are in a similar position to us falling and ceasing to exist, sadly that’s just the way it is, especially without the right guidance and leadership," he said.

“The gulf that has appeared in the game now is massive, not even between full-time and semi-professional, but even the gulf in our grassroots game.

“The likes of the clubs we mentioned earlier, Stour, Halesowen and Tivi, they bring in a few hundred through the gates every week and are thriving.

“We had our time of that kind of success, even better, it was a privilege to follow and be a part of this club during its heyday.

“Of course we would like to get back to that kind of status, but we’re not naïve enough to know it’s an overnight thing, or the case of one season, or a run of consecutive promotions.

“Right now Dudley Town’s aim is to consolidate, to make sure we have a solid structure for the near-future.”

According to Austin, that near-future reaches out to the next five years, the club refuse to realistically look beyond that point – purely due to a lack of personnel.

“We ensure that the funding that has been available is used in the right places and that the club can continue to function the way it has been in recent years.

“There are companies out there that we would love to have connected to Dudley Town, it’s about timing and finding that right offer that keeps all parties happy.

“On the pitch, the next aim would be to step up a level, but we know even that takes considerable planning and preparation, due to that gulf between levels of the non-league game.”

Dudley Sports Centre was the club’s successful former home, an area that would ring more familiar with today’s generation as ‘Castle Gate’ – the leisure complex that now occupies the considerable land.

A Village Hotel, McDonalds, Showcase Cinema, Bowlplex and numerous restaurants have opened in the 15-or-so years since the Sports Centre’s closure, to Austin, it’s a touching place where numerous lifetime memories were created.

“During the 1981-82 season we had floodlights installed at the ground, they were state-of-the-art, some of the best around at any level of football in the UK at the time, never mind non-league.

“We had Wolverhampton Wanderers legend and local hero Billy Wright there to turn the lights on, the ground had 1,800 seats and there were occasions it was absolutely packed.”

A few seasons later the club were successful in reaching the Southern Premier League, now step seven in the football pyramid, and an all-time high for the club.

Little known to those experiencing such great highs at the time it would be a high that needed to be savoured, as a little over a decade later, they were dropping out and being restored several tiers down the ladder.

“Recently, it seems word of mouth has been enough to keep the club beating, we are looking to step forward from that," said the chairman.

“We are aware there are many benefactors and sponsors out there in an area such as Dudley, it’s about approaching them with a considerable offer and hoping they’re willing to support our club, we have a proud heritage and tradition around here, we know people care.

“We don’t want to just have to rely on people connected with the club, we know we can go out there and attract potential investors to Dudley Town Football Club, it’s about weighing up those decisions and choosing the right path for the club.

“Dudley should be a fantastic catchment area, there are multiple opportunities to get the club’s name out there and raise valuable money, but it takes hard graft, it takes individuals who are willing to go and do the extra step to the already hard enough work to sustain the club’s existence.”

I asked the chairman of one of the region’s oldest clubs what he made of the climate in the current game, at the top level, the interview was taken a number of weeks after the announcement that Sky and BT will be paying the Premier League £5.5 billion for its upcoming TV rights package.

“It’s quite ludicrous, there is so much money there at that level, there is money passed down to grassroots, through each local counties FA, but it’s just not what it should be.

“There could be a simple system, it seems too simple, of there being a pot of prize money per division, that gets shared out where you finish at the end of the season.

“£1000 could go to first place, and a relative figure for each position in the table where you finish, maybe even £50 or £100 for the clubs that finish near the bottom.

“It would help more of the clubs, like us, become sustainable and plan further into the future.”

Sadly, as Austin pointed to, the simple system is overlooked, just as clubs like Dudley Town are. There remains only the hope that decades of proud history and heritage can move into a sustainable and successful future, much like the local area of Dudley itself.