Exeter City F.C.
Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team plays in, the third level of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to speculation and debate. The club is owned by the club's supporters through the Exeter City Supporters' Trust.
Exeter City was founded in 1901 and began playing their games at St James Park, where they remain to this day. They joined Division One of the Southern League in 1904. After a tour of South America in 1914 to generate awareness of football in the continent, the club became the first side to play a national team from Brazil. As a result, City and Brazilian side Fluminense are now also partner clubs. Exeter were invited to help create the Football League Third Division in 1920. They were assigned to the Third Division South the next year and won the Third Division South Cup in 1934. They remained in the division until becoming founder members of the Fourth Division in 1958. They were promoted in 1963–64, only to be relegated after two seasons. They were promoted out of the Fourth Division again at the end of the 1976–77 season and managed to stay in the Third Division for seven seasons before being relegated in 1984.
Exeter won their first league title in the 1989–90 season, gaining promotion as Fourth Division champions under the stewardship of Terry Cooper. Relegated in 1994, they lost their Football League status at the end of the 2002–03 season. They spent five seasons in the Conference and recovered from defeat in the 2007 play-off final to win promotion out of the play-offs the next year. Manager Paul Tisdale built on this success by winning promotion out of League Two in 2008–09 and Exeter survived for three seasons in League One. Returning to League Two in 2012, they have lost in the play-off finals in 2017, 2018 and most recently in 2020, under Matt Taylor. At the end of the 2021–22 season they gained automatic promotion to League One.
History
Early history
Exeter City F.C. was formed from two predecessor clubs, Exeter United F.C. and St Sidwell's United. Exeter United was a football club from Exeter, Devon, that played between 1890 and 1904. In 1904, Exeter United lost 3–1 to local rivals St Sidwell's United and after the match it was agreed that the two clubs should become one. The new team took the name Exeter City and continued to play at Exeter United's ground, St James Park, where Exeter City still play today. Exeter United was formed from the cricket team of the same name and were one of the first football teams with the moniker "United". St Sidwell's United was a club that had formed from the regulars who frequented the Foresters Inn in Sidwell Street, Exeter, although the public house was always known as the Drum and Monkey. The team played in St Sidwell's old colours of green and white.On 10 September 1904, Exeter City played its first ever competitive match, a 2–1 victory at St James over 110th Battery of the Royal Artillery, in the East Devon League. The attendance was 600, and the winning goal scored by Sid Thomas, who was to serve the club in various capacities for seventy years. City topped the East Devon League with eleven wins, two draws and one defeat in its first season, and transferred to the Plymouth & District League for next three seasons. In 1908, Exeter City A.F.C. became a limited company. City became a full-time professional team, and applied successfully for membership of the Southern League, replacing Tottenham Hotspur.
A wooden grandstand was erected, and the club entered into a leasing arrangement over the ground. On 3 October 1908, City recorded its record FA Cup win by beating Weymouth 14–0. The match was in the first qualifying round. James "Daisy" Bell scored six goals and ten of the goals came in the first half. City changed to its current colours of red and white in 1910. This was after having had a poor start to the season. City abandoned its supposedly unlucky green and white kit, and turned out for the first time in red and white striped shirts at home to West Ham United on 12 November. The result of the game was a 0–0 draw, but five consecutive league wins came for the club in December, and the change of colours stuck.
City made an historic tour of South America in 1914, during which time it played eight matches against teams of Argentina and Brazil. The last match on this tour on 21 July 1914 was an encounter with the first Brazil national football team playing under the authority of a national football association, in this case the Federação Brasileira de Sports, precursor of today's Confederação Brasileira de Futebol, founded just the month before. Brazil, featuring its first great star, Arthur Friedenreich, won this match at the Laranjeiras stadium, Rio de Janeiro, home of Fluminense Football Club with 2–0. The tour yielded five wins, one draw and two defeats. The only other loss was in a match that kicked off 12 hours after the players got off the boat. Exeter City were invited by the Football League to become founder members of the Third Division in 1920.
Football League (1920–2003)
City's historic first match in the Football League took place on Saturday 28 August 1920, when Brentford was the visiting team to St James Park. Exeter won 3–0. At the end of the season, the third tier of the League was being geographically divided, thus City was assigned to the Third Division South. In 1931, City reached the sixth round of the FA Cup, losing a replay 4–2 to Sunderland in front of its largest ever home gate. Fifty years later, City reached the sixth round again, but lost 2–0 to eventual winners Tottenham Hotspur. Earlier Exeter had beaten Newcastle United 4–0 having beaten Leicester City in the previous round.In the 1932–33 season they achieved their highest position in the League, 2nd in the Third Division South, but remained there because at the time only the champions were promoted. It was the closest they ever came to promotion to the second tier of English football. In the 1963–64 season, City achieved their first ever promotion, going up to the Third Division. However, City were relegated just two seasons later. They would remain in the Third Division until 1977, when they achieved promotion under the guidance of Bobby Saxton.
The end of the 1970s and the early 1980s were regarded as City's most successful spell in the Third Division, including an 8th-place finish in 1979–80 and an FA Cup run the following season. Star players included Tony Kellow, John Delve and David Pullar. In 1990, the club won its first major trophy when they won the Fourth Division title. In that season, City won twenty league games at St James Park, and remained undefeated in 31 home matches, including dramatic draws against Norwich City in the FA Cup third round and Sunderland in the League Cup 4th round, both of which featured late equalisers for the visitors. Following that promotion, City rarely shone at the higher level. The departure of manager Terry Cooper and key players such as Shaun Taylor, Richard Dryden, Clive Whitehead, Brian McDermott and Steve Neville left new boss Alan Ball to pick up the pieces. There were some successes under the former World Cup winner — including winning both games against local rivals Plymouth in the clubs' first derbies for a decade in the 1992/93 season—but Ball left for Southampton in January 1994 and the returning Cooper was unable to save Exeter from relegation.
Back in the bottom division, City struggled for nearly a decade, with chairman Ivor Doble taking the club into administration and starting a chain of events that resulted in the sale of the club's ground. In November 1994, the club almost went out of business and sold its stadium to Beazer for £650,000, but were able to stay there after the local council took it over. After nearly two years on the brink of closure, the club came out of administration on 1 August 1996, although the problems on the field were far from over. In 2003, City finished 23rd in Division Three and was relegated to the Conference National; Exeter were the first club to suffer automatic relegation without finishing bottom of the league. City won their last game against Southend United 1–0, but were still relegated as Swansea City's victory over Hull City left the Grecians one point short of safety.
Conference era (2003–2008)
Following relegation to the Conference, the club was taken over by the Exeter City Supporters' Trust, purchasing a majority shareholding on 5 September 2003. In May 2007 two of the Directors who had been in charge during season 2002–2003 were convicted of fraudulent trading at the club, John Russell receiving a prison sentence and Mike Lewis a community service sentence. Several million pounds in debt and with no big investor in sight, the Trust kept the club going through fundraising activities amongst rank-and-file supporters. Complex legal arguments with both the Inland Revenue and football authorities meant that City's first season of non-league football was plagued by off-the-field uncertainty. The claim was finally dropped in June 2004.In 2004, a Creditors Voluntary Arrangement was put in place to reduce the club's debts. Through the club's "Red or Dead" scheme, hundreds of fans pledged at least £500 each to fund the CVA repayments, but the FA Cup proved to be the income boost the Grecians had needed, as City drew Manchester United away in the third round of the FA Cup. City drew 0–0 at Old Trafford in January 2005, gaining £653,511 as City's share of receipts from the 67,511 attendance. Further income from a televised replay — won 2–0 by United — coupled with ongoing fundraising and unpaid work from the club's supporters helped the club to repay its debts, and the CVA was cleared in December 2005.
2004 also saw the club's centenary. In May 2004 a friendly fixture was arranged against a Brazilian masters team at St James Park, a celebration of City's South American tour of 1914. The Brazilian team, containing such notable players as Careca and Dunga, won 1–0. City's first team finished the 2006–07 season in fifth place, qualifying for the play-offs. After beating Oxford United on penalties in the semi-final, City met Morecambe at Wembley in the final, where they lost 2–1 despite taking an early lead. Exeter reached the play-off final in the following season; this time Exeter looked to be heading out of the play-offs after losing the first leg of the semi-final at home to local rivals Torquay United 2–1, but came back to win the second leg 4–1 with three goals in the last 20 minutes. In the final Exeter met Cambridge United in front of a Conference play-off record crowd of 42,511, winning 1–0 with a goal from Rob Edwards, earning promotion to League Two.