Stowmarket Town FC

Stowmarket Town FC (@stowtownfc) has been around since 1883. There have been roughly 5 generations since Stowmarket were formed. Your great, great, great grandad was cheering them on (playing for them?). The history in these county teams gives me chills.

So, let’s do Stowmarket the honour, and #GetTheBadgeIn.

Let’s start with the three crowns: I’m starting to get the hang of this game now – and I’ve seen them before... These are the sign of the Abbey of St Osyth (that little place down near Clacton in Essex). Back in the Middle Ages the Abbey there was one of the biggest and most important in the country, it owned lands far and wide, including Stowmarket (and reaped in handsome rents and profits from them). They also owned Brentwood, check out the @BrentwoodTownFC badge – you’ll see them there too – Stowmarket and Brentwood are monastic cousins.

St Osyth’s story is a brilliant one: The daughter of a Saxon king (possibly Redwald’s – the feller buried at Sutton Hoo), she fled an arranged marriage to become a nun. Her understanding would-be husband gifted her land for an abbey. Later, Vikings demanded she renounce Christianity. She refused, so they beheaded her. Here’s the best bit: Osyth supposedly picked up her severed head, tucked it under her arm, and walked back to the abbey. Legend says her headless ghost still appears today.

Next, Stowmarket’s crest features an impressive hat. I couldn’t find details and have asked @FoodMuseumUK (formerly the Museum of East Anglian Life). If you know more, let me know!

The yellow and blue background again leaves me a bit puzzled, but I am going to guess this is the same as the Ukrainian flag which represents their rolling flat fields of corn and open blue skylines… sounds a bit like East Anglia, right? I could be wrong, but I’d like to think that every time Stowmarket pull on their shirts, they are subconsciously sticking two fingers up at Putin.

So that’s the badge. Aside from that, Stowmarket has an incredible history. The evidence suggests it was home to a Roman Legion, with 3000 soldiers based there to keep an eye on the locals after Boudicca’s rebellion. 600 or so years later it fulfilled a similar role for the Normans, who built a Motte and Bailey Castle at Haughley. Again, as a sort of Forward Operating Base to keep an eye on the unruly locals (what is with Stowmarket that makes occupiers want to station troops next to it?).

In the medieval period, the town developed as a market centre, hence the name. But significant growth began in 1793 with the canalisation (widening and deepening) of the river Gipping to Ipswich Port, opening Stowmarket’s exports to the world. Initially a centre for malt production, Stowmarket became a hub for chemical and paint manufacturing after the railway arrived in 1846. Tragedy struck in 1871 as the guncotton works exploded, killing 26 people. It’s industrial might made it a target for Zepplin’s in the First World War and Luftwaffe bombers in the second. On 31st January 1941 they scored a direct hit on Stowmarket Congregational Church, completely destroying it, and killing a lady who had just dropped her family off at the rail station and was walking home. Bastards. Hopefully when bombing Dresden the RAF chalked this ladies name on one of the bombs.

The club itself represents a coming together of Stowmarket’s Christian and Industrial heritages – the club was formed by a merger of the St Peter’s Church team and the Stowmarket Ironworkers team. In the early days it played in leagues with many local military teams who liked to play in their hobnail boots to cause extra injuries to the civilian teams they were playing. Nice. The team made good use of the railways to reach their away fixtures and on one occasion travelled by barge down the Gipping.

Today the town can boast a bit of a Renaissance in culture: The Robert Peel Centre (after the DJ who lived locally), the Regal Cinema (fantastic independent cinema) and the Food Museum (recently boosted with lottery money).

Stowmarket then: From occupying armies to making ordnance for the army, from monasteries to malt – Stowmarket has always attracted attention.