When the Buckland Community Association first opened my friend Alan Bearne and myself Peter Wilson applied to the committee to fund a football team in their name. Unfortunately the committee were not in a position to back us financially as their allocation of funds did not at that time stretch that far. Many years of planning for community centre and raising the funds meant that now the community centre was being opened it had to become financially viable under the guidance of the council and it was not possible to back everyones ideas.

Both Alan’s sons and my own would soon be wanting to play for a team so Alan and I asked around to see what sort of support we would get from the Dad’s in the area. We got quite a good response and decided to go it alone and apply to the council to use an area of Sandringham Playing Fields. They agreed to this in a trial capacity but no funds would be available to help set us up. Alan was the real push behind the scheme so together we got a little team together and set up training sessions and arranged a few games with the lads we had. We were allowed to use the community hall as changing rooms. We had to cut the grass ourselves and mark out the pitch ourselves. It must have been one of the smallest pitches in the district but the kids thought it was great. We begged for a line making mixture from some kind soul and somehow scrapped together the cost of flags and goal nets etc.

All this happened in 1976 and by 1977 we entered an under 14 team in the South Hams League. Once the team was up and running we had a little more help from the Dad’s of the area and Eric Phillips joined us in the running of the little club. Both Eric and myself later became Referees in both the Torbay and South Devon Leagues. Unfortunately Alan died tragically at a very young age. Myself and my family moved to Torquay in 1980 where my son then joined a club more local to his area. I think Eric soldiered on with the club. I became involved in my son Aston’s chosen club and also as previously stated became a referee to help keep the costs down for the youngsters club.

I can’t say I can remember all of the boy’s names but I can remember Darren and Wayne England, Robbie and Ian Davey, Nathan (his Mum and Dad had the chippie in Haldon Rise) There was of course many more but their names I cannot remember I just know that Alan and I really enjoyed setting up the above for the future of our children to have a football team locally.

Peter Wilson.


The club was formed in 1977 purely as a junior club. We started life in the Torbay Pioneer League and Sandringham Park was our home pitch. As a junior club it was the biggest in the area, running a total of six sides in six different age groups for several seasons. We won many titles over the years including the Devon Youth Cup. In the season of 1987-88 we were accepted into the Devon and Exeter League and started our senior football life in Senior Division Three playing home games at Coach Road with Roy Holmes still in charge. In our first season we won the Championship and were promoted into Senior Two in 1988-89. Well in the 1989-90 season we gained promotion once more into Senior One these two promotions were gained with a very youthful side. In 1990-91 we were on the move again this time to Decoy and this season saw us win the Wheaton Trophy. We finally achieved our dream of being promoted in the Premier Division in 1992-93, having now moved to our present ground at Homers Lane and the club hasn't looked back since this move took place.


In 1994-95 season saw Roy Holmes step down as first team manager and Nigel Holmes and Roger Madge top the job on. This was the season we won our first Premier Division Championship, a crowning glory to our rise up through the divisions in what seemed to be double quick time. The following season saw us pick up the East Devon Cup after beating our biggest rivals Exeter Civil Service.

Nigel and Roger both stepped down as managers in 1998-99 season and were replaced by Shaun Bartlett and in his first season we retained the Premier Division Cup defeating Seaton Town 2-1. In 1999-2000 Shaun was joined by Phil Bayliss as his assistant and this was to prove our year when we won the Premier Championship for a second time a realized a club dream of being promoted to the Westward Developments Devon League. We only lost three games this season winning the title by 14 points scoring 108 whilst only conceding 16 in 18 league games a record to be proud of.

Now in our first season in the Devon League Shaun stepped down at the start of the season and Phil was joined by Gary Taylor as his assistant, we have now been knocked out of the Devon Premier Cup at the semi-final stage and we finished runners-up in the league, we also picked up the Sportsmanship Cup and Programme Award.

2001-2002 was great season for the club as the Reserves went through the season undefeated in the Devon and Exeter Senior Division Two and were promoted to Senior One. The first team ended the season in sixth place in the league table and were beaten finalists in the Throgmorton Cup.

2002-2003 was another successful season in the life of Buckland, the Reserves won the Devon FA Senior Cup at Coach Road, beating Princess Yachts International 3-0. They were also promoted to the Premier Division of the Devon and Exeter League after finishing in third place, that was only decided on their last game of the season when the top three sides were all in with a chance of securing the title. The First team finished up third in the table which at the start of the season was, as many supporters said beyond them but the managers got good players in at the right times through the season. We also won the Devon League programme award and finished 29th out of a total of 11oo non league programme in the renowned Wirral awards.