Looking forward to a fresh challenge in the United Counties League from season 2018/19 onward, Holwell Sports started life as Holwell Ironworks Football Team in 1902. The ground at Asfordby Hill is where most workers employed at the Holwell Ironworks lived and where the working men’s club was set up for social and fitness activities.

The unique club emblem of the Stanton Horse with an arrow through its chest originates from the crest of the Crompton’s, a Derbyshire family who’s involvement with the original Stanton Ironworks group dates from 1855, the group lasting for more than 80 years.

The crest symbolises the death of horsepower and the emergence of electricity power generation.

When the works needed to meet market demand in the 1870’s it was decided to work through the night but the company found it impossible to provide adequate lighting using portable lamps or gas lighting.

Crompton had read of the development of the electric arc light and bought some French machinery and lamps, thereby transforming the group’s output after installation in the works.

Crompton went on to design a new type of generator and began manufacturing electrical plant on his own as Crompton and Crompton, much later to become Brooke Crompton Parkinson in the 1960’s and part of the Brush and later Hawker Siddeley engineering groups of the eighties.

There are, to this day, BRUSH and Brooke Crompton Parkinson motors driving industrial machines.

Holwell’s most famous son was Dixie McNeil (born 16 January 1947 in Melton Mowbray) who famously played as a striker. As a schoolboy, McNeil signed for his local club Leicester City F.C.after playing for Holwell Works. However he did not fit into the First Division side’s plans and was released. He eventually made his football league debut for Exeter City F.C.in the 1966-67 season against Wrexham, a club he would later play for and manage.

Dixie was a nickname to savour, associating him with the country’s most famous footballer of his day, Dixie Dean, who set a record when he smashed 60 league goals for Everton in the 1927/28 season.

In 1988 the Holwell Works closed and the club’s name was changed to Holwell Sports Football club.

In 2008/2009 Holwell gained promotion to FA level 6 on the national football league pyramid, one of the originating clubs in the East Midlands Counties League competing against teams from Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire. In their first season Holwell finished a respectable seventh.

Our reserves continue to play in the Leicestershire Senior League.