ONE of the oldest football clubs in North Yorkshire will be hoping to enter their centenary year in some style this summer - as triple champions of their league.

Boroughbridge FC were for-med, it is believed, prior to or during the 1900/01 season.

And now, as they near their 100th year, the successful club have a great chance of sealing the York Leeper Hare League premier division for the third season in a row.

The oldest record the club have of their existence relates to two games against Haywra FC in late 1900, which both ended in defeat.

Since then, the club's six different grounds - their present one at Aldborough Road backing onto their first-ever pitch at Kirkby's Field - have seen 99 years of football, broken only by the two world wars.

Hundreds of trophies have followed, especially recently, and in this, their 99th season, they currently head the Leeper Hare premier table by one point from Dringhous- es, with one game left.

Should they beat New Earswick they would retain the trophy for the third successive year, and therefore enter their 100th anniversary in fitting style.

The club, though, has not been starved of success over its history, with recorded trophy wins dating back to the 1920s and '30s, including the Ripon League Championship and various Harrogate FA competition successes.

Club secretary Dale Binns said: "Boroughbridge FC have always been well-respected in terms of local football, but it's been the 1980s onwards that have seen phenomenal success come our way."

That success includes over 100 trophies shared between the club's five sides in the past 20 years, including eight Harrogate League titles during the '80s and their York Leeper Hare League successes the following decade.

In the 1987-88 season alone, the club won a total of 13 trophies at various levels.

Binns added: "We won the West Riding County Challenge Cup in 1995 and '96 and, in 1997, we achieved what I consider to be the pinnacle of the club's successes when we lifted the Northern Counties Senior Cup as representatives of the West Riding FA.

"For a club of our size - we are in only a small town - our success has been quite phenomenal."

As part of their centenary celebrations, the club are hoping to arrange games against York City's and Leeds United's intermediate teams, to be played some time over this summer.