Ashford Town (Middlesex)

Hanworth Villa is the fixture that sharpens everyone at Short Lane; the two sides have shared a Spelthorne postcode and a grudge long enough that the meeting is simply known as the Ashford Town v Hanworth Villa derby, with Wealdstone the other name that raises the pulse when it appears on the fixture list.

The club did not start life under this name. It formed in 1958 as Ashford Albion and entered the Hounslow & District League, becoming Ashford Town in 1964. The 'Middlesex' was added only in 1990, and not out of nostalgia for old county lines but to stop confusion with a Kent club that also once answered to Ashford Town, now known as Ashford United.

A first golden run came under Frank Reid, a former Fulham player who took charge for the 1974–75 season and delivered the Surrey Intermediate League title that year. Mark Butler's era went further still, lifting the club into the Ryman Premier League and as far as the FA Cup First Round Proper. The 1990s brought the club's most productive spell in league terms, five Combined Counties League championships between 1994–95 and 1999–2000, and the 2000s and 2010s settled into a pattern of promotion and relegation between that division and the Isthmian League, a cycle that repeated again when relegation from the Isthmian South Central in 2024–25 was answered by an immediate return, the Combined Counties League Premier Division North title in 2025–26. That comeback season was played with the pitch at Short Lane torn up for a new artificial surface, meaning home games were shared with Cobham for the year.

Two players carried the Ash Trees' name into the Football League. Danny Bulman and Ricky Wellard both went on to play for Wimbledon during the club's 'Crazy Gang' years, a route out of non-league football that Ashford Town still points to. Closer to home, no one has scored more for the club than Andy Smith, whose goal tally remains the one figure every long-serving supporter at Short Lane can still recite.