Didn’t Harry Redknapp play a few games for them in that time?
Now here’s a funny thing. I used to believe this too. He was friendly with some of the old Lockheed management and turned out in at least one testimonial at the Windmill but despite the fact that I was told this repeatedly by my dad in my youth; he never played for or managed AP.
The only time I ever went to watch other football than City on a regular basis was at AP. The old ground was walking distance from my grandmother’s house and I went most home games for about 18 months in the first few years of the Alliance Premier. The novelty of playing big exotic names like Altrincham and Frickley Colliery was great.
After a couple of seasons, AP got relegated and the following year built a really good side under Graham Allner; Center forward Kim Casey scoring goals for fun. They got involved in a cup run and got seriously behind league leaders,Kidderminster Harriers, in terms of games played. However a magnificent run of games playing 3 times a week for months saw AP overhaul Kiddy and were crowned champions at the end of the season. Promotion back to the Alliance Premier (about to be renamed the Vauxhall Conference) was due.
However the league decided that the Windmill wasn’t up to standard (AP had been in that very league the season before) and denied Leamington promotion. Instead they gifted the promotion spot to second placed Kidderminster Harriers.
This would have been bad enough but Kiddy immediately sacked their manager and installed Graham Allner, who spent the rest of the summer recruiting Leamington players (inc Casey).
AP were relegated, lost the Windmill and had to reinvent themselves much further down the food chain with a team of mostly Sunday league players from the area.
The revival in recent years rivals that of Stockport, Luton and possibly us (although on a smaller scale). It ought to be a warning for how quickly things can go wrong and was one of my worries when we were playing in Northampton and the Council were obviously willing us to go out of business and start again from scratch.
