 Area League North in those days consisted of eleven teams and only involved 10 fixtures a season.Stourbridge remained in that league for 15 years, the only club to do so, and then, at long last, were promoted to National 2 in 2001.They had flirted with promotion (but never with relegation) throughout that period, but their most spectacular achievements were in successive years 1998–99 and 1999–2000, when they ended up in a frustrating second place, playing attractive attacking rugby and smashing the league record for the number of tries a season, averaging well over 5 tries a game.