Woodlands Wellington Football Club was a professional football club based in Woodlands, Singapore which played in the S.League, the top division of football in Singapore. The club took part in S.League from 1996 to 2014. They are at the 4,300 seater Woodlands Stadium, where they have played since their establishment.
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
Wellington Football Club (1988–1996)
Woodlands Wellington 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). 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 beat their opponents 28– 1 at the Woodlands Stadium on 17 November 1991. Louis Amalorpavanathan scored a record 12 goals in that match.[1]
The following year, Wellington FC joined the Singapore National Football League in Division 2, from which they were promoted as champions in 1994. The following season they finished first in Division 1 (going unbeaten for 24 matches) and were runners-up in the FA Cup.[2]
Woodlands Wellington Football Club (1996–2014)
Woodlands Wellington 2012 First Team group photo
Wellington Football Club were selected as one of eight clubs to compete in the newly formed S.League in its inaugural season in 1996, prompting the club to adopt Woodlands Stadium as their home ground and to change their name to Woodlands Wellington Football Club.[3][4]
While they enjoyed a relatively successful period throughout the late nineties, Woodlands finished last in the 2001 S.League season, prompting them to sign Singapore internationalsZulkarnaen Zainal, Goh Tat Chuan and A. Siva Kumar.[8] The transfers of Goh and Siva Kumar were particularly controversial as Woodlands and Jurong were well-known rivals in the league.
Woodlands Wellington made the headlines in the 2007 S.League season for a walkout by the entire Woodlands squad in a match against Tampines Rovers as a protest to the decisions made against them by referee P. Pandian. Woodlands were fined $30,000 for the incident and had six points docked.[9]Tampines coach Vorawan Chitavanich was reported as saying "I spoke to their coach just a little while ago and he said that they acted on the instructions of their club chairman."[10]
A report by The New Paper on 22 November 2012 suggested that Woodlands may be in financial trouble and could be the second club to sit out the 2013 S.League after Gombak United has announced earlier that it would not be taking part in the league in 2013.[11] This sparked off a supporter-driven "Save Woodlands" awareness campaign on the same day.[12] The club held an open meeting with the supporters and press at Woodlands Stadium later that evening and quashed the report. Team manager, Matthew Tay, also said that the club was already preparing a pre-season tour of Malaysia, and that the club would be signing players and would also be aiming for a minimum 8th spot in the table this season.[13][14]
Merger with Hougang United
In November 2014, it was announced that Woodlands Wellington and Hougang United will merge for the 2015 season.[15] However, the move did not materialise.[16]
In 2016, Woodlands formed teams to play in the Island Wide League (IWL) and Women's Premier League (WPL). After two years, they restarted their football operations, at least at the youth and grassroots level, as they begin to work their way back into the S.League.[17]
In 2017, Woodlands Wellington reportedly pulled out of IWL after one season.[18]
Supporters
The supporters' club of Woodlands Wellington Football Club are known as The Black Sheep.[19] 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.[20][21]
Stadium
Woodlands Stadium's grass pitch
Woodlands Stadium is currently the home ground of Woodlands Wellington, and used mostly for football matches. Apart from being used for competitive matches, the pitch is also utilised by the club for their training sessions as well. The stadium capacity was upgraded to 4,300. This includes the 2,000 seater grandstand, the 1,000 seater semi-permanent stand opposite the grandstand and the 1,300 seater portable stands on each end of the pitch.
Woodlands Stadium is the only stadium in Singapore which has a MRT track overlooking the pitch.
Sponsors
Woodlands Wellington was sponsored by Bandai from 1996 to 1998,[22] after which it was sponsored by Sembcorp from 2001[23] to 2010. The club went without a sponsor from 2011 to 2012 before Singaporeanequity company, ESW, took up the sponsorship of the Rams from March 2013.
As Wellington Football Club, the team played in a white kit with purple and green trimmings. 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.
The Woodlands Wellington team in their green third kit against Myanmar club, Kanbawza in the 2012 Singapore Cup on19 May 2012
The 1996 season of the S.League was split into two series. Tiger Beer Series winners Geylang United defeated Pioneer Series winners Singapore Armed Forces in the Championship playoff to clinch the S.League title.
2003 saw the introduction of penalty shoot-outs if a match ended in a draw in regular time. Winners of penalty shoot-outs gained two points instead of one.
Woodlands Wellington deducted 6 points for abandoning a match on 5 September 2007.
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