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Woodlands Wellington FC

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Woodlands Wellington FC
logo
Full nameWoodlands Wellington Football Club
Nickname(s)The Rams
FoundedMay 1988 (as Wellington FC)
By R. Vengadasalam
GroundWoodlands Stadium
Woodlands, Singapore
Capacity4,300
ChairmanSingapore Winson Song Ying Kong
Head CoachSingapore Salim Moin
LeagueS.League
20123rd (As of 12 Feb 2012)

Woodlands Wellington Football Club is a professional football club which plays in the S.League, the top division of football in Singapore. They are based in Woodlands at the 4,300 capacity Woodlands Stadium, where they have played since their establishment.

Woodlands Wellington FC are known for being the only non Premier League team to be inducted into the S.League in its inaugural year in 1996.

Before Sembawang Rangers departed the S.League at the end of the 2003 season, they shared a fierce rivalry with Woodlands Wellington Football Club. Their matches were fondly known as the S-League's Northern Derby.

Woodlands Wellington FC's honours include winning the inaugural Singapore League Cup in 2007, defeating Sengkang Punggol FC 4-0 in the final. They also finished runners-up in the Singapore FA Cup in 1997, and also in the Singapore Cup in 2005 and 2008.

Their best finish in the S-League came in the 1996 Tiger Beer Series where they were runners-up. They have also achieved 3rd place in 1997 and 2005.

History

File:Woodlands Wellington Team Photo 2012.jpeg
The Woodlands Wellington team before their S.League match against Courts Young Lions on 1st March, 2012

Woodlands Welllington was founded as Wellington Football Club in 1988 as a splinter group of Delhi Juniors (a team of Singaporean football enthusiasts, dating back to the 1940s, that were among the pioneers of football in Singapore). Despite their name, the team did not originate from New Zealand as many believe. Instead, the name stems from the Deptford Ground located on Wellington Road in Sembawang where the team started playing football in 1988.

In 1991, they participated in the Sembawang Group League and National Island-Wide League, winning as champions in both competitions and setting a national record by beating Seletar Football Club by a 27-goal margin. This was one of the biggest wins the club had ever achieved, as they thrashed their opponents with a resounding 28 - 1 victory at the Woodlands Stadium on 17 November, 1991. Louis Amalar scored a record 12 goals in that match.

The following year, Wellington FC joined the National Football League and were placed in Division II, from which they were promoted as champions in 1994. 1995 saw unprecedented success, as they finished first in Division I (going unbeaten for 24 matches) and were FA Cup runners-up. Wellington FC was known to walk out from the dressing room to the tune of Eye of the Tiger, which they had adopted as their theme song. The team mascot back then was a masked Sioux warrior who often accompanied the team onto the pitch and performed a war dance before the match began. The fans would also chant "Warriors! Warriors!" to egg the players on as they marche dout of the tunnel of Yishun Stadium, where they played most of their games during their time in the lower divisions.

Their convincing displays led to their selection as one of eight clubs to compete in the newly-formed S.League, prompting the club to adopt Woodlands Stadium as their home ground and to change their name to Woodlands Wellington Football Club.[1]

Several players were groomed by Woodlands Wellington Football Club into national team players such as Masrezwan Masturi, Dalis Supait, John Wilkinson, Agu Casmir, Itimi Dickson and Jeykanth Jeyapal.

Numerous national players had also donned the club's colours like V. Sundramoorthy, D. Devaraj, Zakaria Awang, Tamil Marren, Malek Awab, the late Borhan Abu Samah, Yazid Yasin, S. Anthonysamy and Zulkarnaen Zainal.

Logo and Mascot

As Wellington FC, the logo of the club was a generic crest with the letters WFC (an abbreviation of Wellington Football Club) and the team was known as the warriors back then. R.Vengadasalam, who managed the club both before and after its induction in the S-League, recalls that the Wellington FC logo was designed by Nadahrajah, a former player of Wellington FC and his personal friend.

When it was inducted into the S.League, then-CEO Douglas Moore required all the eight founding teams to come up with their own mascot. Since SAFFC had chosen the "Warriors" nickname ahead of Woodlands, then-team manager R.Vengadasalam decided to pick the Ram as a mascot as he was and still remains a loyal Derby County fan up till today.

The first Woodlands Wellington logo consisted of a Ram in mid-leap and was used from 1996 to 2002 and was replaced by the current logo from 2002 onwards.

Colours

As Wellington Football Club, the team played in a purple / green ensemble in the early nineties. As soon as they were rebranded into the Woodlands Wellington Football Club in 1996, the Rams changed their home kit to all white with a narrow stripe of yellow and green down the middle.

In the ensuing years, yellow was employed as the main colour of choice for the home kit and this has become the traditional colour for the club.

Sponsors

Woodlands Wellington FC was sponsored by Bandai from 1996 to 1998, afterwhich it was sponsored by Sembcorp from 1999 to 2010. Since the 2011 S-League season, the club has been without a sponsor.

The team is presently outfitted by Acono for the 2012 season. Their previous kit sponsors include Lotto, Diadora and Mitre.

Players

Current Squad

As of 15 February 2012

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
1 GK Singapore SGP Ahmadulhaq Che Omar
2 DF Singapore SGP Danny Chew Ji Xiang
3 DF Singapore SGP Duncan David Elias (vice captain)
4 DF Trinidad and Tobago TRI Fabien Lewis
5 DF England ENG Daniel Hammond (team captain)
6 MF Singapore SGP Armanizam Dolah
7 MF Singapore SGP Guntur Djafril
8 MF Singapore SGP Han Yiguang
9 FW Singapore SGP Goh Swee Swee
10 FW South Korea KOR Moon Soon-Ho
11 MF Singapore SGP Shamsurin Abdul Rahman
No. Pos. Nation Player
12 DF Singapore SGP K Sathiaraj
13 MF Singapore SGP Aloysius Yap
14 MF Singapore SGP Hilmi Azman
17 FW Singapore SGP Farizal Basri
18 GK Singapore SGP Ang Bang Heng
19 DF Singapore SGP Vincent Lee
20 FW Australia AUS Hussein Akil
22 MF Singapore SGP Farhan Hairoddin
27 MF Singapore SGP Andy Ahmad
37 FW Singapore SGP Danial Tan

Goalscoring statistics

As of 29 February 2012
Pos Player S-League League Cup Singapore Cup Total Goals
1 South Korea Moon Soon-Ho 2 0 0 2
2 Singapore Goh Swee Swee 1 0 0 1
3 Australia Hussein Akil 1 0 0 1

Current Management Team

Prime League Squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
No. Pos. Nation Player


Former Notable Players

Former Notable Managers

Former Head Coaches

Honours

Domestic

Cup

Performance in AFC competitions

1998/99: First Round

Supporters' Club

The supporters' club of Woodlands Wellington Football Club are known as the Black Sheep. [2] They can be seen at both home and away games dressed in the club's official colours of yellow and blue and are usually seated behind the Rams' dugout. Since its inception, the Black Sheep have been using the warcry "Never Surrender!" to rally their players on. [3]

References

  1. ^ Malathi Das and Palakrishnan (1996), "S.League: the kick-off", Singapore Professional Football League Pte Ltd, p. 62
  2. ^ "The Black Sheep Facebook Page".
  3. ^ "Fans of the mysteriously quiet Woodlands Wellington FC say "Never Surrender!"".


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