COLNE DYNAMOES were one of the biggest non-League success stories in the history of the game.

Owner and manager Graham White had taken the side from the local amateur leagues to the brink of the Vauxhall Conference.

They had won the HFS Loans Premier League - now the UniBond Premier League - by 26 points and White harboured ambitions to take the club all the way to the Football League.

But their Holt House ground wasn't even good enough to get them into the Conference.

Talks with Burnley FC and Blackburn Rovers about possible groundshares fell through and White said he and his family had received death threats, thought to be football related but from outside East Lancashire.

The club folded literally overnight.

Six years later, a group of committed Colne followers decided to re-form the club - calling it simply Colne FC.

With their Holt House ground they were welcomed with open arms into the North West Counties League, the bottom tier of the football pyramid.

But on the pitch they were nothing like the Colne of the past. They finished bottom of the NWCL second division in their first season and finished just two places higher the season after.

They were rarely out of the bottom six and with a young side last season 4-0 and 5-0 scorelines were not a rarity.

They won just four games, conceding 107 goals in 38 games.

But this season the manager, players and the backroom staff have reaped the rewards of five years of hard work to put Colne back on its feet.

They currently lie a lofty seventh in the table and are threatening to do better this season than in all five previous seasons put together.

And it is just reward for the chairman Dave Blacklock, who was instrumental in re-forming the club five years ago.

"It is a massive reward to see the club doing well," said the 53-year-old building site manager, who lives in Barrowford.

"Before, you would see people around the town and they'd be commiserating with you because the side were doing so badly but now the comments have changed. It keeps you going."

But he admits it has been a long, hard slog to get the club into a position where it can compete at NWCL level.

"We struggled right from the start and following Colne Dynamos made it a lot harder," he said. "But we can't be compared with them. People remember the heights they reached, they don't remember when they were in the West Lancs League."

When Dynamoes folded East Lancs League side Rock Rovers and West Lancs League side Colne British Legion shared the ground.

But Legion went bust in 1995 and it was too much for Rock to pay for the upkeep of the ground.

"So we got our heads together and decided to reform the town team," said Blacklock.

"The North West Counties were looking for clubs with facilities like ours so we got re-elected but we weren't ready."

Former Dynamoes keeper Keith Mason took over as manager but quit after 17 games, none of them wins.

Denzil Hart took over but was replaced by the current manager John Lister - who was Hart's assistant - at the beginning of last season.

"Denzil was a highly qualified coach but with him not being from the area his scope was limited but John is a local lad.

"The lads he is pulling in are local and he has managed to convince some good quality players to take a chance on the club, like James Webster and Gareth West.

"But when you are down at the bottom you struggle to get players in.

"There have been times when I have been down. There is no one here to bankroll the club, it is financed purely through sponsorship and contacts.

"I would gladly step aside if someone else wanted to take over.

"But it is not just about money, you need passion as well, for football and the town.

"We have plans to get the ground up to first division standard and we want to push for promotion next season."

Life in the North West Counties League can be tough - even when you are winning - but Blacklock says he has never been close to calling it a day.

He said: "You're always scratching around for the next pound, you're always having to improve your ground but we have never been near to going bust. We have been low but we have stuck it out."