Kings Langley F.C.
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| Full name | Kings Langley Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Kings |
| Founded | 1886 |
| Ground | Gaywood Park Kings Langley |
| Capacity | 1,000 |
| Chairman | Derry Edgar |
| Manager | Paul Hobbs |
| League | Southern League Premier Division |
| 2015–16 | Southern League Division One Central, 1st (promoted) |
Kings Langley Football Club is a football club based in Kings Langley, near Hemel Hempstead, England. After spending the majority of their history in the Herts County League, they joined the Spartan South Midlands League in 2001, and are currently members of the Southern League Premier Division following a third consecutive promotion in 2016.
Kings Langley Football Club was founded in 1886, with the village doctor, Frederick Fisher, as its first Chairman. Founder members of the West Herts League in the 1891–92 season, Kings Langley also won the St. Mary’s Cup in front of 3,500 people at the Watford Recreation Ground that season, retaining it the next year and losing the final on a replay the year after that. Early pitches included Groomes Meadow, Blackwell Meadow, and Kings Langley Common, and although it has been stated that the club did not settle at Home Park until 1913, the ground is known to have hosted a 1898–99 match against Hemel Hempstead Town in front of 300 spectators.
After slipping down the divisions, Kings Langley’s first league honour came in 1911–12, winning the Division 3 title, followed by the Division 2 Championship in 1919–20. The following two seasons saw an uncomfortable time in the Herts County League, before returning to the West Herts Division 1 in 1922–23. A similar drop down the divisions led to the club folding in February 1930, only to be reformed four months later, with a Division 2 Championship and Webster Cup triumph at the end of the first season. The return to the top flight lasted only two seasons, but two years later Kings Langley topped Division 2 for their fourth divisional title.
1934 saw a new pavilion built on Home Park, opened by future FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous. With the Herts County League undergoing reformation, Langley took the radical step of joining the Southern Olympian League, taking the second and first division titles in successive years and spending two seasons in the Premier until the outbreak of the Second World War.
A 1939 application to play in the FA Cup was accepted prior to the 1945-46 edition, leaving Kings Langley just four weeks to put a team together. The club succeeded, making it to the first qualifying round before getting knocked out. When league football resumed the following year, Kings found themselves back in the Herts County League, gaining promotion from Division Two that year. In the five seasons that followed, Kings Langley won the First Division title twice, came runners-up twice, and won the St. Mary’s Cup after a 58-year gap.
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