Exeter Rangers Ladies Football Club
11 Jul 2009

27 YEARS OF EXETER RANGERS

Exeter Rangers was formed in 1982 to meet the demands from girls in the area wanting to play competitive football. Initially the team played in the South West League and later joined the South West Region Women's Football League.

In 1987 the team became the founder members of the Exeter and District League and had two very successfully seasons winning the League and Cup double in both the 1987/1988 and 1989/1990 seasons.

The team rejoined the South West Region Women's League in 1990. After several seasons of competitions in that league the Club became a founder member of the Westward Developments Devon Women's League in 1996.

In that inaugural season of the league, Rangers lost a vital match to the eventual League Champions and finished Runners Up. They did reach the League Cup final, although this match was never played due to a dispute between the two sides involved in the semi final match.

2004/2005 Season
This was a hard season with a lot of injuries to the team. Despite some good performances, especially the 1-1 draw against Plymouth Argyle Reserves at the end of the season, we finished bottom of the table and were relegated to Division One.

2005/2006 Season
Rangers started the season having had alot of training sessions over the summer (thanks to John Asher and new coach Rod Hawker) and entries to numerous tournaments. Some fresh faces and alot of hard work cumulated in winning Rangers 2005 summer tournament just before the season started.

Despite an impressive start in the league, injury played havoc with the squad and the team eventually finished fourth separated from the winning team by only five points. This was not enough to be promoted to the Premier Division of the Devon Women’s League, but it did restore a lot of confidence ready for the following season.

Off the pitch the 2005/2006 season marked a landmark for the club in that a new website was designed, produced and launched by Club Secretary Ruth Willans. The site received over 100 hits in its first week and proved to be a vital communication tool keeping members up to date with club news and acting as a recruitment tool for people interested in joining the club.

2006/2007 Season
The new season saw many changes within the club; Rod Hawker started his first full season as team manager; a full committee was voted in at the AGM and sponsorship money from Starz restaurant and Vaults of Gandy Street enabled a new ladies fitting home strip to be purchased. Rod worked hard to develop the squad and the team, lead by club captain Mandy King and team captain Helen Wells, displayed this on the pitch. The team lead Division One from the start of the season with some impressive results against Roborough and Chaddlewood Miners. After a long season, Exeter Rangers were crowned Division One Champions and were presented with their silverware at the Devon Women’s League end of season awards ceremony held at Crealy Adventure Park , Exeter .

2007/2008 saw Rangers playing in the Premier Division for the first time in three seasons. The team didn't start as well as they would have liked and sat mid table for the early part of the season, although slowly Rangers moved up the table during the second half of the season.. Rangers ended the season third, just missing out on the runners up spot.

2008-2009
This was a season of change for Rangers. Once again a struggle in the early part of the season as they attempted to overcome the loss of key players during the summer - and not least that of their goalkeeper ! Things did improve again during the second half of the season, and the Club managed to salvage sufficiant point to remain in the Premier League for the forthcoming season. Changes also took place off the pitch. During the winter and spring of 2009, discussions took place with Tedburn St Mary FC with regard to the develoment of an affiliation type relationship between Exeter Rangers and Tedburn St Mary FC. The successful results of these discussions led to a change of name of the 'Rangers' to that Exeter & Tedburn Rangers Ladies Football Club - allowing the Rangers to remain financially and organisationally independent, whilst sharing much joint activity, on and off the pitch, with Tedburn St Mary FC.

One visible development so far has been the role in Rangers members in the provision of training and coaching of Under 16 year old girls from the Tedburn area with a view to supporting the eventual formation of a girl's section to the Tedburn St Mary Football Club.
This new 'symbiotic' partnership provides opportunities for both Clubs to benefit from each other - and support the development of football for both males and females in the area.

EXETER & TEDBURN RANGERS LADIES FOOTBALL CLUB

2009-2010 Season