FTFC | Club History | Glory & Gloom

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Glory & Gloom Frome's greatest triumph came in 1978-79 when the club won the Western League. The Championship was secured by losing only once in the last 32 matches. The League Cup followed in 1979-80. Another vintage year followed in 1982-83 with victories in both the Somerset FA Premier Cup and the Western League Cup, plus runners-up in the league. The next trophy to follow was the 1983-84 Western Counties Floodlit Cup & in 1984-85 the Club reached the second round proper of the FA Challenge Trophy. Following those heady days, Frome flirted all too often with relegation from the Premier Division and were finally relegated in 1995-96 under the guidance of Mike Leeson and the Club spent several years in the lower reaches of the First Division. Former player Simon Culliford had eighteen months as Robins boss before budget cuts meant his departure and Frome man Colin Thurston was appointed for the 1998/99 season after previously running the Reserves and it was then that the Club first began to forge links with local junior side Frome Sportshouse. He put together a team that only featured players from the local area but although there were some good performances it didn’t work out and Thurston was relived of his duties. While things on the field were not going well, off it was even worse. The then Social Club committee had racked up thousands of pounds of debt to a local brewery and lost its liquor licence from the district council. Local nightclub owner Paul McGuinness stepped in to help out and took on the running of the premises on a lease basis from the Club which guaranteed a regular income to the football club. The Club was re-structured off the field in 1999-00 with McGuinness taking on the chairmanship and money was spent on upgrading the old and ramshackle ground. Geoff Morton-Norris who had spent several years on the Committee and as Chairman stood against Sue Merrill for the role of Club Secretary which she had held for many years and she subsequently resigned and Morton-Norris stood unopposed at the Annual General Meeting. Unfortunately, success on the field did not follow with Yeovil based Kingsley John in charge of team affairs. At his interview he reeled off a list of players he aimed to bring to the Club that had been involved with Yeovil Town Under 18’s. As it transpired none of the signings materialised that season although several of them did join the Robins just 12 months later - who knows what could have happened if they had signed at the time. One player who did join the Club was a young 18 year old striker from Stoke Sub Hamdon called Mark Salter and nobody could have imagined how his Robins career would develop over the following decade as he became a modern day legend for the ‘Frome Faithful’. John only lasted a handful of games and after a 6-3 defeat away to Backwell United in the Somerset Premier Cup in early October he was dismissed and the job was handed to Keith Ball and Ali Belcher. The new duo brought in a whole host of new faces from the Wiltshire area and the players that signed were mainly promising up and coming youngsters or had already forged out a distinguished Western League career. However, the results were poor and the Club hit its lowest point for many years when they finished bottom of the First Division table and were only spared the embarrassment of relegation into County football by a re- organisation of the league. It was to be a pivotal season for the Robins, lessons were learnt and the Club were determined not to allow them to happen again. Ball and Belcher were sacked just before the end of the campaign and all thoughts turned to the start of a new decade and a new era. Could the Robins end several years of hurt and put themselves back on the footballing map in the South- West......