Bristol City Women's Football Club is a women's association football team from the city of Bristol. Formed in 1998 as Bristol Rovers W.F.C., they were renamed Bristol Academy W.F.C. in 2005 following the withdraw of support from Bristol Rovers and increased involvement and academy development from Bristol Academy of Sport (now SGS Sport), part of South Gloucestershire and Stroud College. A second change of name, this time to Bristol City was approved by the FA Women's Football Board in time for the 2016 WSL season. With their home games relocating from SGS College’s Stoke Gifford Stadium to the Robins High Performance Centre and now Ashton Gate Stadium. Bristol City Women won promotion to the FA Women's Super League (WSL), the highest level of the women's game in England in 2016 and stayed there for five seasons before being relegated to the FA Women's Championship in 2021.[1]
History
Early Years
The team was founded in 1998, following a merger between the Bristol Rovers girls' teams and Welsh side Cable-Tel L.F.C.. This merger came about as Bristol Rovers only had girls teams up to the under 16 age group level, so when girls reached the age of 16 they were forced to leave the club. The merger with Cable-Tel meant that Bristol Rovers had a senior squad, and more importantly it gave them a place in the South West Combination league, only two levels below the top flight of women's football in England. This new merged team took the name Bristol Rovers W.F.C. and played their home games at The Beeches, the training ground and administrative offices of Bristol Rovers, located in Brislington.
The name of the club was changed to Bristol Academy at the beginning of the 2005–06 season to reflect the increased involvement of the Bristol Academy of Sport with the club. The team continued to play in the blue and white quarters of Bristol Rovers however, and also retained the nickname The Gas Girls, an acknowledgement of Rovers' unofficial nickname of The Gas.[5] Bristol Rovers, now in the bottom division of The Football League, found themselves unable to continue financing a women's team in 2006 and withdrew funding. Bristol Academy of Sport agreed to bankroll the team for 12 months, but there were serious doubts during the 2006–07 season that the club would survive beyond the summer.[6]
The club were one of eight founding teams in the FA WSL in April 2011, when they moved into a brand new stadium at South Gloucestershire and Stroud College's Stoke Gifford Campus.[8]
In 2013 the club signed a sponsorship agreement with Bristol City FC and changed their home kit from blue to red,[9] and three years later the club was renamed Bristol City Women's Football Club.[10]
Tony Ricketts also achieved league success, with the team winning the Southern Division in the 2002–03 season and earning promotion to the FA Women's Premier League National Division. The first season in the top-flight was a struggle, with the team narrowly avoiding relegation. However Bristol Academy established themselves in the National Division with two fifth-place finishes over the next two seasons.
In the 2006–2007 season, the club reached the top spot in November (though defending champions Arsenal L.F.C. had games in hand due to European Cup, League Cup and FA Cup commitments). Arsenal played their games in hand Bristol Academy, hovered between the 4th and 8th places.
Bristol City Women finished 2nd in FA WSL 2 for the 2016 season and won promotion to FA WSL 1 for their 2017 campaign.
They were relegated in the 2020–21 season to the FA Women's Championship where they finished third in their first season back in the second tier.
The 2022–23 season saw Bristol City win their first ever league title and, with it, promotion back to the WSL.
Cup history
Bristol City away against London Bees, April 2016
In the short history of the team they have reached the semi-final of the FA Women's Cup five times. The first was in the 2000–01 season when they were still playing their league football in the South West Combination, playing in front of a club record crowd of over 3000 at the Memorial Stadium against Arsenal L.F.C. The match ended in a 3–0 defeat. Three more unsuccessful semi-final matches were to follow in this competition, against Fulham L.F.C. in 2002–03, Charlton Athletic L.F.C. in the 2004–05 season and Arsenal again providing the opposition in 2006–07.
In 2011 the club reached the final of the FA Cup after a 3–0 semi-final win over Liverpool. Bristol were beaten 2–0 by Arsenal in the final, before 13,885 fans at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.[12] In 2013 the club reached its second FA Cup final after a 2–0 semi-final win over Lincoln Ladies. Bristol were again beaten by Arsenal 3–0 in the final at the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster.
The team dominated the Gloucestershire FA Women's Challenge Cup in their early days, winning the trophy eight times in their first nine seasons. The only failure to win the competition came in the 2003–04 season when they were beaten in the final by the original Bristol City W.F.C., their first ever defeat to their cross-city rivals. Following the 2006–07 win the first team stopped competing in the tournament, although their junior teams continued taking part.
They did manage to reach the final of the Continental Tyres League Cup Final in the 2020-21 season where they unfortunately suffered defeat against Chelsea FC.
Because of the new WSL, England's UEFA Women's Champions League places were allocated to the FA Cup finalists as a one time exception. Thus Bristol won a place in the 2011–12 UEFA Women's Champions League round of 32.[13] They started in the round of 32 and were drawn against Russian side Energiya Voronezh and drew their home game 1–1 but lost the return leg in Russia 2–4 and didn't advance.[14][15]
^A League cup column shows results in the FA Women's Premier League Cup (2001–2010) and the FA WSL Cup (2011–present) ^B There was no WSL Cup tournament during the 2017 WSL Spring Series
After having played at a number of different grounds, the team finally got their own home in 2011 when they moved into the newly built Stoke Gifford Stadium at South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, WISE Campus in North Bristol. It was the first stadium in the UK to be developed specifically for a women's football team,.[18][19] They stayed here until the end of the 2019-20 season. After this league requirements saw a move to Twerton Park and a groundshare with Bath City FC. The robins only stayed here for one season before they relocated to the Robins High Performance Centre for the start 2021-22 season. Multiple games have also been played at Ashton Gate stadium.
The club record attendance came in April 2023 when 7,045 spectators watched Bristol City against Charlton Athletic in the FA Women's Championship at Ashton Gate.
The club announced that all home matches would be played at Ashton Gate for the upcoming season.[20]
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