First published in March 2024

With one finger pointing to the sky, the goal celebration is the same – even though the photographs were taken more than three decades apart. On the right is Archie McClelland celebrating his early opening goal at Real Bedford last month. On the left is his Dad, Steve McClelland, who was top scorer for the last Harpenden Town team to win a divisional title.

That was back in 1989-90, when Harps won the championship title to return to the South Midlands League Premier Division after several seasons struggling in Division One. The club had won the Premier Division title twice in the 1960s, but were relegated in the early 1980s and by the end of the decade were bumping along at the bottom of the league.

The previous campaign, 1988-89, had been the lowest point in the club’s decline and one of the worst in their history. They had failed to win a league game until late January and ended the season with just four victories as they finished rock bottom. Manager John Sharman resigned in early 1989 and captain Kelvin Gregory took over as caretaker boss while Harps looked for a successor. In April it was announced that Alan King and Lee Edwards would be joining from Sandridge Rovers in the summer and after Harpenden lost their final game of the 1988-89 season to fellow strugglers Stony Stratford, King said: ‘The whole aim of next season will be to win the Division One title.’

Given Harpenden had finished in the bottom three in each of the previous three seasons – and had just been described by the Herts Advertiser as ‘no hopers’ – it was a bold claim.

But King and Edwards overhauled the squad and made an immediate impact. They opened the season with a 1-0 win over Stony Stratford, then followed that up with a 5-0 victory against Cranfield United.

One of the goalscorers against Cranfield was Steve McClelland, who had just joined the club from Markyate.

Steve takes up the story. ‘I’d played a lot of my football in the Luton League with village clubs like Studham and Flamstead and I’d been playing at Markyate and scored a lot of goals. Tony Gumigan went from Markyate to be Harpenden’s reserve manager and I went over to watch them train one night. They were doing five-a-side games and they were short of a player for one of the teams so I joined in and they asked me to play for the reserves on the Saturday.

‘I scored a couple of goals in my first game for the reserves so they put me in the first team and I never looked back.’

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After a strong start, Harpenden were front-runners almost all season and were well clear having lost only one game as winter turned to spring. But a lean spell in March saw them drop points and Wingate closed the gap, emerging as genuine title contenders.

McClelland scored twice in a 7-0 win at Sandy to get Harpenden back on track. The manager, King, told the local press after that game: ‘After all the problems of the previous month, where we have been diabolical at times, this was a sensational return to form. We could have had ten.’

Just before Easter, Harpenden beat Tring Athletic 3-0 while Wingate lost. It left Harps five points clear but Wingate still had three games in hand. They faced a punishing schedule of three matches in four days over the Easter weekend while Harpenden had the diversion of an O’Brien Butchers Cup semi final to take their minds off the title race.

Harpenden secured promotion by beating Bedford United 3-0, which set up a final-day championship decider against Wingate at Rothamsted Park. Wingate had dropped points over Easter but went into the final game only a point behind, meaning they could take the trophy with a win, while Harpenden knew a draw would be enough to get their hands on the silverware.

Wingate took the lead in the first half, then McClelland equalised only for Wingate to go back in front in the second half. On a roasting hot early May afternoon, temperatures were rising on the pitch and Harpenden were reduced to ten men after one foul challenge too many.

But that galvanised the Harps and Mark Vidgen equalised before adding a winner with 13 minutes to go to crown the home side champions.

Veteran Town player and former caretaker manager Kelvin Gregory said: ‘When we were 2-1 down with ten men it was going to be an uphill struggle. But it showed the character of the players to come back and win the match and the league.

‘Lee and Alan promised they’d win the league when they arrived at Harps and they’ve actually come up with the results.

“Our record speaks for itself. Before the Wingate game, in 27 league matches we’d only conceded 14 goals.’

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A few days after the title decider, Harps completed the league and cup double with a 2-1 win over Caddington in the O’Brien  Butchers Trophy thanks to goals from Vidgen and McClelland.

Steve finished the season as top scorer, but he’s not sure how many he got. ‘You’re testing my memory now,’ he says. ‘It was in the twenties, I know that.’

His Mum kept a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings and his league and cup medals are at home somewhere, ‘probably in the loft’ he says. Now his son Archie is scoring goals for Harpenden it’s tempting to say ‘like father, like son’, although Steve is reluctant to make comparisons beyond the goal celebration style.

‘The football is very different now,’ he says. ‘And our playing styles are hard to compare. I would shoot from anywhere – left foot, right foot, inside the box, outside. I joined Harpenden relatively late in my career – I was 28 – and it was a big step up from where I’d been playing before but I just took to it and I ended up staying at the club years, well into my late 30s until my legs started going.’

What are Steve’s strongest memories of that title-winning 1989-90 season?

‘It just clicked straight away even though it was a new side, pretty much. We had some really good players – Keith Burrows in goal, Dave and Alan Stevens, who still come up and watch Harpenden these days, Lee Attfield the captain, John Thompson, Mark Vidgen and there were others.

‘I can’t remember individual games or goals that well but I remember the last game of the season against Wingate. There was a big crowd at Rothamsted Park and it was a real occasion.

‘My better memories are of the social side. It was a really good club – it still is. We had some late nights in the old clubhouse, or we’d go to Billy’s bar in the High Street and then on to Luton or somewhere. The social side of it was great. The club’s bar was always full and there was a real atmosphere.

‘After we’d won the league, there was a presentation at the old town hall, which they’d decked out in yellow and blue, which were our colours then. Lee Dixon, the Arsenal player, who used to drink in Billy’s Bar with some of the other Arsenal players who lived in Harpenden, presented us with the trophy and medals.’

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Steve’s son, Archie, returned for a second spell at Harpenden in the autumn, after winning the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division title with Leighton Town last season, before moving to Bedford Town.

Steve is a regular at Rothamsted Park and at away games, even when Archie isn’t playing. ‘If I can make it, I’ll go and watch,’ he says. ‘It’s my club and it’s good to see them doing well. For the small number of volunteers they’ve got running it, they deserve everything they get.’

And what about Harpenden’s Class of 1990? Alan King stepped down as manager as soon as the season ended and his assistant Lee Edwards took over, steering the club to a comfortable seventh-place finish in the Premier Division. McClelland carried on playing for the best part of a decade.

The South Midlands League merged with the Spartan League in the late 1990s to form the competition we know today and Harpenden have gone between the top two divisions without adding another title to the club’s roll of honour. They’ve come close, finishing second in Division One (2003 and 2017) and third in the Premier Division (2018). Hopefully it won’t be long before the town hall is again decked out in the club’s colours – although it’ll be green and gold next time… GREEN&GOLD