Swindon Town

Swindon Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team, known as the "Robins", currently compete in EFL League Two, the fourth level of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground since 1896, which now boasts a capacity of 15,728. Known as the "Robins", their home colours are red and white. Hall of Fame inductee John Trollope played 770 league games for the club between 1960 and 1980, a professional record in English football. Founded as Swindon AFC in 1879, they became Spartans the next year, before finally settling on the name Swindon Town in 1883. The club turned professional in 1894 as a founding member of the Southern League, later also entering the Western League between 1897 and 1902. They were crowned Western League champions in 1898–99 and Southern League champions in 1910–11 and 1913–14, before they were elected into the Football League in 1920. They remained in the third tier for 43 years, finally securing promotion into the Second Division in 1962–63, where they remained for just two seasons. They lifted the League Cup after beating Arsenal in the 1969 final, and went on to secure promotion at the end of the 1968–69 season with the help of talismanic winger Don Rogers. Relegated again in 1973–74, they dropped into the fourth tier for the first time at the end of the 1981–82 season. Swindon won the Fourth Division title in 1985–86 and secured a second successive promotion the following season under the stewardship of Lou Macari. They went on to claim victory in the 1990 Second Division play-off final, but were denied promotion into the top-flight after admitting to breaching Football League regulations. Glenn Hoddle coached the team to victory in the 1993 play-off final to finally secure a place in the top-flight for the first time in the club's history. However they were relegated out of the Premier League at the end of the 1993–94 season and dropped into the third tier with a second consecutive relegation. Promoted again as champions to avoid an FA expulsion and a hat-trick of relegations in 1995–96, they remained in the second tier for four seasons until relegation in 2000. They dropped into League Two in 2006, though managed to secure promotion the next season; they repeated this feat following relegation in 2011, winning the League Two title in 2011–12 to earn promotion to League One. They repeated the feat from the 1981–82 season by following relegation back to League Two at the end of the 2016–17 season. They won their third League Two title in the COVID-19 pandemic-stricken 2019–20 season.