Rhyl Football Club was originally formed on 25 September 1878, following a meeting held at
Rhyl Town Hall. At a follow-up meeting a week later, it was decided that the club would play at a field adjacent to the Winter Gardens, and that the club colours would be all black with a white skull and crossbones on the chest. The first club captain was W. C. Langley. The club played in the 1878 Welsh Cup, but lost 1–0 in the First Round against
Friars School, Bangor. There were several clubs in Rhyl at the time, one of these being Rhyl Grosvenor FC, who played a floodlit match against Rhyl FC in February 1879. Rhyl Grosvenor amalgamated with Rhyl FC in September 1879, prior to the start of the 1879–80 season. Rhyl FC became founder members of the
Welsh League, formed in 1890, but withdrew the following year. By that point, the club colours were red and black. They reformed as
Rhyl Athletic in November 1892 and became founder members of the
North Wales Coast League, winning the title in 1894–95, by which time the club was also being referred to as
Rhyl or
Rhyl Town. Rhyl Amateur joined forces with Rhyl Town in May 1898 and added the Anglo-Welsh competition known as
The Combination to the club's fixtures. Despite financial crises, they remained in membership until the league disbanded at the end of the 1910–11 season. Under the name of Rhyl United, they rejoined the North Wales Coast League, but following the
First World War, they moved to the North Wales Alliance, before becoming founder members of the
Welsh National League (North) in 1921. Rhyl won the title in 1925–26 and became a limited company in 1928 as Rhyl Athletic. In 1929, Rhyl applied to join the
Football League but
York City became the only non-league team elected to the Third Division North. With North Wales football in turmoil in the early 1930s, Rhyl sought to realise their ambitions elsewhere. Another unsuccessful application to the Football League was made in 1932 before joining the
Birmingham and District League. Seeking relief from the onerous travelling to the Birmingham area, Rhyl Athletic successfully applied to join the
Cheshire County League in 1936, at the same time as changing their name back to Rhyl, and began one of the most successful chapters in the club's history. In a post-war purple patch, Rhyl won the league title twice – in 1947–48 and 1950–51 – and the
Welsh Cup twice in succession. In 1952, they beat
Merthyr Tydfil 4–3 and became the first non-league side in the modern era to retain the trophy, by defeating
Chester City 2–1 the following season. Rhyl had been losing finalists to
Cardiff City in 1930 and
Crewe Alexandra in 1937, but did not feature in the final again until 1993, when they lost 5–0 to Cardiff City. Between 1948 and 1972 Rhyl appeared regularly in the first round proper of the
FA Cup. In
1957 Rhyl reached the fourth round proper, beating
Notts County 3–1 away before losing 3–0 away to
Bristol City; in
1971 they eliminated
Hartlepool United and
Barnsley before elimination by compatriots
Swansea City. The club finished Cymru Alliance runners-up to
Gap Connah's Quay in 2010–11 and 2011–12. GAP secured promotion to the Welsh Premier League in 2012, having failed to obtain a domestic licence in 2011, leaving Rhyl as potential favourites for the title in 2012–13. From the terraces, Mike Jones was announced as the club's new general manager. Rhyl started the 2012–13 season magnificently, winning their first 8 games. On 6 May 2013, having won the league title on 20 April, Rhyl beat Cefn Druids 2–0, thereby becoming the first club to complete a Cymru Alliance season without a defeat. In winning 24 matches and drawing 6, Rhyl scored 100 goals and secured promotion back to the Welsh Premier League after an absence of three years. On 20 August 2013, Rhyl announced a three-year sponsorship deal with Corbett Sports that would see the Belle Vue ground renamed as the Corbett Sports Stadium. In May 2015, it was announced that manager Greg Strong had left the club by "mutual consent". Former player Gareth Owen was then appointed as manager, with Mark Roberts as his assistant, but a disastrous run of form during which the club won only three matches in all competitions meant Owen and Roberts departed in February 2016. They were replaced by 24-year-old academy director Niall McGuinness, whose father Laurie, a former Rhyl coach, was appointed as assistant manager. On 21 April 2020, the club announced it was going to cease trading and be formally wound up after failing to find a £175,000 investment that would have saved the club. The club's directors cited the financial impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic as a reason for its demise, with no income to the club following the postponement of all football nationally. The former club's league position under manager Eddie Maurice Jones at the time was at its lowest for the past 30 years. In May 2020 two members of staff, together with members of the Rhyl Fan Association (RFA), formed a
phoenix club with the aim of continuing the historical legacy and tradition of the old club. Working in liaison with the RFA, a ballot was held to decide a name for the new entity, which resulted in
CPD Y Rhyl 1879 being formally chosen. A few days later, the new club directors secured the use of the old club's Belle Vue ground for the 2020–21 season, with an exclusive option to buy the ground in its entirety for the new club. ==Rivalries==