Accrington Stanley

Full name	Accrington Stanley Football Club
Nicknames	The Reds[1] The 'Owd Reds
Short name	Stanley[2] Accy Stanley[3]
Founded	October 1968; 57 years ago (1968-10)
Ground	Crown Ground
Capacity	5,450 (3,100 seated)[4]
Owner	Andy Holt
Manager	John Doolan
League	EFL League Two
2025–26	EFL League Two, 16th of 24
Website	accringtonstanley.co.uk
Home colours Away colours
Current season

Accrington Stanley Football Club is a professional association football club, based in Accrington in Lancashire, England, that competes in the EFL League Two, the fourth level of the English football league system. Ever since its founding, its team have played at the Crown Ground; they traditionally play in red shirts, most often also with red shorts and socks.^[5] The club is known as Accrington Stanley, Stanley or just Accrington.

The club came to national prominence in 1989 due to a popular television advert for the Milk Marketing Board, which featured the slogan "Accrington Stanley, who are they?".

The current club was formed in 1968, two years after the collapse of the original Accrington Stanley. The original club was founded in 1891 and played in the Football League from 1921 to 1962 after initially competing in the Lancashire Combination. The town's original club, named simply Accrington, were founder members of the Football League in 1888, but folded six years later. The current incarnation of the club entered the Lancashire Combination and moved on to the Cheshire County League after winning the Combination title in 1977–78. Stanley won Division Two of the Cheshire County League in 1980–81 and became founder members of the North West Counties League in 1982, before being placed in Division One of the Northern Premier League five years later. After promotion to the Premier Division in 1990–91, Stanley were relegated in 1999.

The early 21st century saw the club win three promotions in seven seasons under the stewardship of John Coleman to gain a place in the Football League. They won three divisional titles in each of their three promotions: Northern Premier League Division One (1999–2000), Northern Premier League Premier Division (2002–03) and the Conference National (2005–06). This marked the return of Accrington to the professional league system after 44 years. They then spent 12 seasons mostly in the bottom half of the table in League Two, though did also lose two play-off semi-finals, before Coleman led them to promotion to League One as League Two champions in 2017–18. The club was relegated to League Two in 2022–23.