26 27 Programme Leek Town 260826

The success, all under the guidance of manager, Neil Baker, continued in the following season in the form of an FA Cup run where they defeated Scarborough in the First Round Proper and forced a replay against Chester City in the Second Round.  

Leek’s second place finish in 1993/94 should have been enough to see them promoted to the Vauxhall Conference. Instead, they were rewarded by being shunted sideways to the Southern League, as they were denied a place for financial reasons. They enjoyed a fairly successful campaign, finishing in 7th place, but due to the crippling financial commitment, requested a move back to the Northern Premier League. Success followed shortly as they won the championship in the 1996/97 season and were promoted to the Conference. The club managed to retain its Conference status at the end of the first season, a feat that required them to play six matches in the final eight days of the season. The following season proved one too many and relegation back to the UniBond NPL Premier Division resulted.  

The relegation saw a complete change in the playing staff, with a side of mainly local players. The team struggled and was relegated again at the end of the 2000/01 season to the UniBond NPL First Division. Following the league restructuring at the end of the 2003/04 season, Leek returned to the Premier Division where they finished in 7th position. In the following three seasons Blues struggled against relegation and after two great escapes they succumbed in the 2007/08 season.  

Relegation saw a complete rebuilding of the side, but under manager Wayne Johnson and then Neil Cox they failed to reach the promotion Play-offs. Neil Baker took the reins briefly in 2011 before returning to Crewe Alexandra, his assistant Lee Casswell took charge and led the Blues to the promotion Play-offs three times in four seasons, losing twice in the Final against Ilkeston FC in 2012 and Sutton Coldfield Town in 2015. Lee remained in charge until April 2016 when Anthony Danylyk stepped in as player/manager and continued in the 2016/17 season. 

Neil Baker returned at the start of 2017/18 and in his first season narrowly missed out on a Play-off spot. The following season 2018/19 Leek Town finished 3rd, and after beating Colne in the Semi-Final, they narrowly lost to Radcliffe FC in the Final after beating their opponents twice in the league campaign. 

In 2019/20 Leek Town were riding high and were top of the table from December 2019 – with 10 games to go the covid pandemic curtailed the season – they were cruelly denied promotion when the season was declared null & void. In 2020/21 Leek continued where they left off and where top of the table again after 8 games, where once again COVID campaign curtailed the season. 

In 2021/22 the Club was moved from the NPL East to the NPL West with the re-organisation at Step 4, they also changed their playing surface to 3G which saw a revamp of the already impressive stadium, despite having to play away from home until mid-October Neil Bakers side finished 3rd and progressed to the Play-offs. They then lost at home in the Semi-Final to Runcorn Linnets who in turn beaten by Marine in the Final. 

2022/23 saw further success as Blues finished runners-up to Macclesfield Town. However, the curse of the play-offs struck again, as once more Runcorn Linnets killed off the promotion hopes.  

Just a few weeks into the 2023/24 season, Neil Baker resigned as manager and Josh Brehaut who had been taken on as Bake’s assistant took over as First Team Manager. He had a great start to his management career, leading the team to the NPL West Division title in his first year in charge, securing promotion to the Northern Premier League after an absence of sixteen seasons.