IT was 50 years ago today (March 6) when Mike Ferguson and his Accrington Stanley team-mates arrived for training to discover that it was all over.

The events of March 6, 1962 still stick in Ferguson’s mind. For a promising 18-year-old who would go on to star for Blackburn Rovers, Stanley’s decision to resign from the Football League came as a great shock.

A letter had been sent to the Football League that morning, the conclusion reached a night earlier at an infamous creditors’ meeting.

The club’s debt of £60,000 had become too great. Stanley could not go on. It was a story that made national headlines.

“We turned up for training as normal on the Tuesday,” recalls Ferguson, who lives in Burnley.

“Cliff Lloyd from the PFA came in, sat us down and said, ‘That’s it, there will be no more football here’.

“We couldn’t believe it, and there were no directors there to tell us.

“There should have been. Jack Wigglesworth the secretary was there, Bill Smith the coach and Harry Hubbick the trainer.

“We knew things weren’t good because we hadn’t had our wages for five or six weeks.

“Charlie Kilby – the grandfather of Barry Kilby, the Burnley chairman now – would give me the money for my bus fare from Burnley. He would help the players how he could, whether it was a fiver or a tenner. He was one who was heartbroken.

“But no-one really told the players what was happening.

“By the time we found out on that Tuesday even the washing machine had already been taken.

“Everyone was worried about their families, three quarters of the squad had come down from Scotland and that was their wage gone. It was a real shame, a good club was allowed to go to the wall.”

Understandably, there was anger within the town. Bob Lord, the Burnley chairman at the time, was criticised for his role in events.

Lord, an influential figure on the Football League’s management committee, had been asked to assist the situation by Stanley chairman Sam Pilkington. But he stood up at the creditors’ meeting to effectively declare the club a lost cause, and Pilkington agreed.

In the days to follow, there were suggestions of people coming forward offering to pay some of the debt, but by then it was too late.

Stanley tried to withdraw their resignation and play their match against Exeter that weekend.

But Football League secretary Alan Hardaker blocked the move, and on March 11 their resignation was officially accepted.

Weeks earlier, Ferguson had been told by Stanley that he was joining Workington for £3,000 but was reluctant to sign for the Fourth Division side.

“People blamed Bob Lord but it wasn’t his fault,” said Ferguson.

“I just don’t think anyone knew how big the debt was because the directors hadn’t told anybody.

“It was down to the chairman, like everything it comes from the top.

“It beggared belief why they sent that letter of resignation.

“But it was diabolical that Alan Hardaker refused to let the club withdraw their resignation as well.

“These days the Football League would do everything not to let that situation happen.

“I was blamed for not going to Workington, that stigma stayed with me for a long time.

“Every time I played an away game it would say in the programme that I refused to go.

“That hurt. I was treated really badly by the directors but the players all supported me.”

The club suffered a financial blow in 1955 when a successful lottery scheme was declared illegal, and three years later the purchase of a stand from the Aldershot Military Tattoo proved a costly mistake.

Crowds dwindled as Stanley started to struggle on the field, not helped by the sale of key players at the start of their final campaign.

“We sold the two best strikers in the lower divisions, George Hudson and Jack Swindells, and Garbutt Richardson, Graham Lord and Lawson Bennett all got bad injuries,” Ferguson said.

“We lost five players in the space of 15 months but it started when they sold our two strikers and didn’t replace them. It was a snowball effect because we didn’t get results and fans didn’t come.”

The 68-year-old, who earned his move to Blackburn soon after Stanley’s resignation, saw many of his old team-mates for the first time in years at a reunion at Saturday’s home match against Port Vale.

“I was one of the fortunate ones because I went on to have a good career, others weren’t so lucky,” Ferguson said.

“But great credit has to go to the people involved in the club from 1968 onwards. They did a superb job bringing the club back.”