Harlow Town

The Hawks have been playing football in Harlow, Essex, since 1879, when their first match was against Saffron Walden Town, a fixture that has stayed a local rivalry ever since. Bishop's Stortford, Ware and Stansted round out the derbies that still matter on the fixture list.

Nothing in the club's history matches the winter of 1979–80. Non-league Harlow beat Southend United, then Leicester City in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup, John Mackenzie scoring the winner against Leicester, before Watford ended the run. Gary Lineker played against them in that campaign, on the losing side. The same season brought the Isthmian League Division One title, still the club's highest league honour.

Ground moves have marked out the eras almost as clearly as the trophies: Green Man Playing Fields until 1960, then the Harlow Sportcentre for over four decades, and since 2006 the Harlow Arena, known before that as Barrows Farm, where 3,500 can fit and 350 can sit. Jeff Wood's 44 goals in the 1988–89 promotion season stood as the club record for a quarter of a century, until Alex Read went past it in 2014.