Woodlands Wellington FC

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.

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.

Woodlands Wellington Football Club (1996–2014)

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.

Following their admission to the S.League, Wellington's founder, R. Vengadasalam, was appointed as the Team Manager of Woodlands Wellington and Bandai were announced as a sponsor in their maiden season in the S.League. Following this, they signed Jan Janostak, Joe Caleta and Ervin Boban, from the Malaysia Super League, as well as Singapore national players Borhan Abu Samah, Tamil Marren, Zakaria Awang, from England Notts County legend Darren Davis and Croatian goalkeeper Sandro Radun, who played for the Singapore FA in 1992. Woodlands Wellington played to capacity crowds, including their pre-season friendlies.

Woodlands won the President's Centennial Cup in 1998, a cup competition organized by the Philippine Football Federation to celebrate the centennial of Philippine Independence, beating Sembawang Rangers 4–2 in the semi-final and Hong Kong Rangers 2–1 at the Negros Occidental Sports Complex in the final in Bacolod with both goals from Razali Ahmad.

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 internationals Zulkarnaen Zainal, Goh Tat Chuan and A. Siva Kumar. 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. 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."

Reported withdrawal from the S. League

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. This sparked off a supporter-driven "Save Woodlands" awareness campaign on the same day. 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.

Merger with Hougang United

In November 2014, it was announced that Woodlands Wellington and Hougang United will merge for the 2015 season. However, the move did not materialise.

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.

In 2017, Woodlands Wellington reportedly pulled out of IWL after one season.

Supporters

The supporters' club of Woodlands Wellington Football Club are known as The Black Sheep. 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.

Stadium

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, after which it was sponsored by Sembcorp from 2001 to 2010. The club went without a sponsor from 2011 to 2012 before Singaporean equity company, ESW, took up the sponsorship of the Rams from March 2013.

The team is presently outfitted by Singaporean kit makers, Waga, for the 2013 season. Their previous kit sponsors include Lotto, Kappa, Diadora, Umbro, Mitre and Thai apparel makers, Acono.

Logo and mascot

File:Woodlands Wellington Football Club Logo 1996 to 2002.jpg|Woodlands Wellington FC crest, 1996–2002 File:Woodlands Wellington Football Club logo.png|Woodlands Wellington's crest, 2003–2014 File:Woodlands Wellington FC 2013 Mascot.jpg|Woodlands Wellington's Ram Mascot

Colours

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.

Kit evolution

• Home

• Away

• Third / Special

*The third kit for 2007 was used as the home kit of the 2008 season.

Continental record

Youth academy

The youth academy of Woodlands is the Centre of Excellence, which develops promising young players and grooms them for the future. Main article: Woodlands Wellington Centre of Excellence

Manager history

• England Steve Wicks (1996)
• England Dean Wheatley (1997–98)
• Singapore V. Sivalingam (1999)
• Croatia Ivan Raznevich (2000–01)
• Malaysia M. Karathu (2002–03)
• England Simon Clark (2003–04) – Player / Coach
• England Maff Brown (2005)
• Morocco Karim Bencherifa (1 Jan 2005 – 30 June 2006)
• Germany Jörg Steinebrunner (2006–08)
• Croatia Nenad Bacina (1 Jan 2009 – 31 Dec 2009)
• Singapore A. Shasi Kumar (1 Jan 2010 – 31 Dec 2010)
• Singapore R. Balasubramaniam (1 Jan 2011 – 12 Jan 2012)
• Singapore Salim Moin (13 Jan 2012 – 28 Nov 2013)
• Australia Darren Stewart (14 Jan 2014 – 15 June 2014)
• Singapore Salim Moin (15 June 2014 – 31 December 2015)

Performance in domestic competitions

• 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.

Last updated on 15 May 2014

Records and statistics

Top 10 all-time scorers

• Biggest Wins: 6–0 vs Gombak United (25 April 2002)
• Heaviest Defeats: 8–1 vs DPMM (26 August 2014)
• Youngest Goal scorers: Neil Vanu ~ 21 years 7 months 20 days old (On 31 March 2011 vs Étoile FC)
• Oldest Goal scorers: Mohd Noor Ali ~ 35 years 3 months 21 days old (On 6 September 2010 vs Geylang United)

Honours

Personal awards

Domestic

• League Player of the Year

  • Morocco Laakkad Abdelhadi (2006)
  • SIN Aleksandar Duric

• League Coach of the Year

  • MAS M. Karathu (2002)

• League Top Scorer

  • Morocco Laakkad Abdelhadi (2006)
  • KOR Moon Soon-Ho (2013)

• Player of the century

  • SIN Staffan Stewart (2025)

References

References

1. "Seletar meets its Waterloo against Wellington – 28–1!", The Straits Times, 18 September 1991, Page 34
2. "Wellington Div 1 Champ", The Straits Times, 19 June 1995, Page 29
3. Malathi Das and Palakrishnan (1996), "S.League: the kick-off", Singapore Professional Football League Pte Ltd, p. 62
4. "Wellington fires first shot in hiring top guns", The Straits Times, 23 July 1995, Page 31
5. "Power Rangers to Woodlands' rescue", The Straits Times, 23 March 1996, Page 39
6. "Woodlands pulling in the crowds in its friendlies", The Straits Times, 16 February 1996, Page 30
7. "Philippines International Tournaments 1991–1998, President's Centennial Cup 1998".
8. "Midfielder Zulkarnaen joins Woodlands", Today, 5 December 2001, Page 35
9. "Woodlands pay the price for walk-out".
10. "A sad day for Singapore football". Channel NewsAsia.
11. Another S-League club to sit out?, Page 67, The New Paper, Thursday, 22 November 2012
12. "Save Woodlands Campaign". Woodlands Wellington Football Club.
13. "Woodlands to play next season". The New Paper.
14. "Tay assures supporters of Rams' participation in 2013 S.League, targets top 8 finish.". Woodlands Wellington Football Club.
15. (5 November 2014). "Uncertainty over S-League's changes for 2015". [[Today (Singapore newspaper).
16. (9 Feb 2016). "S.League club merger between Woodlands and Hougang falls through". [[The New Paper]].
17. (9 Sep 2016). "New beginnings for Woodlands Wellington". [[Today (Singapore newspaper).
18. (28 Feb 2017). "FAS turns its attention to NFL". [[The New Paper]].
19. "The Black Sheep Facebook Page".
20. "Fans of the mysteriously quiet Woodlands Wellington FC say "Never Surrender!"".
21. "The Black Sheep - Who Are They? on SLeague.com".
22. Rams close to new deal, Today – Afternoon Edition, 27 March 2001, Page 30
23. $700,000 windfall for Woodlands, The Straits Times, 12 June 2001, Page S4