Warmley F.C. was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Warmley Warmley is a village in South Gloucestershire, England. Warmley is situated in between Bristol and Bath. It is a parish, with its own church, and has some minor landmarks, such as a World War One memorial the focus of Remembrance Services, an ...

, near Kingswood,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. They were formed in 1882. They are widely regarded as playing the first organised football match in the Bristol region against

St George Saint George (Greek language, Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin language, Latin: Georgius, Arabic language, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christians, Christian who is venerated as a sa ...

. Alongside Clifton, St George and Eastville Rovers they were founder members of the Gloucestershire F.A. They were also one of the founding members of the Bristol & District League (now the

Western Football League The Western Football League is a football league in South West England, covering Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, western Dorset, parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. The league's current main sponsor is Toolstation, so it is also known as ...

) in 1892, winning the title four times in their history. With the advent of professionalism in the Western League in 1897

approached Warmley with a proposal to merge the two clubs. The feeling among members of St George was that Bristol was not large enough to support four professional clubs (

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

, Eastville Rovers, Warmley, and St George) and that by pooling their resources a new merged team would be the strongest club in the city. Warmley, however, rejected the proposal and the merger never took place. In 1896, Warmley joined the Second Division of the Southern League, before both

and

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been c ...

. The 1897–98 season saw the club finishing in second place to Royal Artillery (forerunners to

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

) in the process becoming the first team in the Southern League to score 100 goals in a season. The club now competed in the First Division alongside other Bristol sides City and Bedminster. Only seventeen matches were completed before the club folded in February 1899. A new club formed and entered the Western League again in 1903. The club resigned in the 1904–05 season and its season record was expunged.

Honours

* Southern Football League Second Division runners up 1898 *

/Bristol & District League champions 1893, 1894, 1896, 1897

References

Sources

* The Official Centenary History of the Southern League
Football Club History Database
Defunct football clubs in England Association football clubs disestablished in 1899 Association football clubs disestablished in 1904 Defunct football clubs in Bristol Southern Football League clubs 1899 disestablishments in England 1904 disestablishments in England Association football clubs established in 1882 Association football clubs established in 1903 {{England-footyclub-defunct-stub