The Charles Henderson Trojans are in the playoffs this year. This Friday the Trojans take on Citronelle in their eighth playoff appearance in the last nine seasons. The Trojans have been on a successful playoff stretch in this decade, but times haven’t always been good for the Trojans.

Traveling back in time to 1980, the Trojans were the top team in the state coming off of a state title.

Few knew that the Trojans wouldn’t see a playoff appearance for another decade.

Henderson broke the dry spell with back-to-back playoff berths in the 1991 and ‘92 seasons, but another dry spell was looming.

“Winning and being successful doesn’t just happen overnight,” Trojans head coach Hugh Fountain said. “It takes work. It takes changing the mentality.”

It took Fountain six seasons before he put a Trojans team back in the playoffs.

Fountain’s 2000 version of the Trojans broke an eight-year drought, and it was the beginning of a new era of Trojans football.

The 2000 team was Fountain’s first freshman class, and he said they had a special mentality about how they would achieve their goals.

“They said they wanted to pull our program out of mediocrity and change the history of Charles Henderson football,” Fountain said. “It was big for that team. The boys had to fight to get to that point.”

The Trojans made the playoffs again in 2001, and they would throw their name in the postseason hat for the next four years.

The 2005 team didn’t make the playoffs.

“They felt they had let down the ones who got us there,” Fountain said of the ’05 team. “The kids who played for us have a lot of pride in what they did, and it rubs off.”

The 2005 season would be the only season since the 2000 season that his team didn’t make the postseason.

“One thing we’re proud of is that we’re very competitive in 5A football,” Fountain said. “Our goal now is not only to make the playoffs, but to be 5A state champs. It all starts with us this year against Citronelle.”

The Trojans had their most successful run since the 1980 season last year when the Trojan made it through the regular season undefeated until the third round of the playoffs.

Henderson posted a 12-1 record, and it was Fountains most successful season at the helm of the program.

The Trojans however this season have dropped three games, but a resilient group of Trojans could take a three-loss team and make it one of the best in school history.