Exeter City Everywhere...
Thanks for dropping in to the web site of the Exeter Exiles and the 1931 Fund. This isn't exactly the fastest moving corner of the web, but there's a fair bit to read here and we update it with new odds and ends quite frequently.
Our latest news is that the group of City fans who fund the cost of Callum McNish (pictured) have raised over £10,000 already this season. You can read more about their 1931 Fund, which financed his move to St James Park, here.
About the Exeter Exiles
The Exeter Exiles are a group of Exeter City supporters, formed in London in the early 1990s. We're still at our strongest in the capital - and the majority of us are London Grecians - but our membership of over 150 City fans is spread far and wide.
Our main role is to keep exiled Grecians in touch with Exeter City. We do this both figuratively, through weekly news emails, and literally, by offering travel, (usually by rail), from London to pretty much every Exeter City match.
We charge a small annual membership fee, currently £10, which helps to keep the Exiles running smoothly and enables us to offer financial backing to Exeter City and the Supporters' Trust.
In 2010, we paid £1,000 towards the ‘Pitch In’ fund, which enabled a new playing surface to replace the increasingly tired looking old St James Park pitch.
Back in the Summer of 2003, with City facing their darkest hour, the Exiles raised £3,000 in one boozy evening to help keep the club alive.
We have a representative on the Board of Society of the Exeter City Supporters’ Trust. The Trust is the majority shareholder of Exeter City FC and the organisation which leads the football club – a unique model in the Football League and a glorious success story in which we’re incredibly proud to be playing our part.
We also have a very active role in the Association of Provincial Football Supporters Clubs in London (APFSCIL). This organisation exists to promote links between and represent the interests of London based supporters clubs.
The Exeter Exiles administer The 1931 Fund, which collects £19 per month from around sixty City supporters – most exiled from Devon’s fair city and many of whom are Exeter Exiles members.
The money raised by The 1931 Fund covers the wages of Exeter City’s Number 31, currently young striker James Norwood, pictured above with Ed Beattie, Trev Arnold and Dave Hill of the South Coast Grecians.
In 2010, the 1931 Fund paid £10,000 to Exeter City, and a further £7,000 was paid in February 2011.
Fans of normal clubs chip in for player sponsorship packages. We do that too for Our James, but we also pay his wages...
As well as supporting City, we also try to play the beautiful game ourselves, not always especially beautifully, and have been London FA members for 16 years.
There are two Exeter Exiles FC sides playing in London against the likes of Rangers, Aberdeen, Ireland, Middlesbrough, Manchester City and Birmingham City in the APFSCIL Football League. The A’s are good; usually challenging for honours in the top division, having made the last 16 of the London FA Sunday Cup in 2010 and the quarter finals in 2003. Meanwhile the B’s (aka the Bauys) are a team that warmly welcomes every single Grecian who wants to ‘play for City’ and will give all they've got for the shirt.
It’s not all in London though. Two Exiles sides enter the massive annual WorldNet football tournament in Leeds, whiles a group
of Exiles head each year to the beautiful Greek island of Andros to play our Greek Grecians friends.
We also try to keep in close contact with the large number of City supporters in Norway (pic of some of our Bergen based Grecians enjoying the win at Charlton). See the Links box (left) for their web site and other key ECFC corners of the web.
Oh and we like pubs and curry too. We arrange to meet up socially from time to time - including an evening with former City star Nicky Marker in 2009 - and we also compete against other London based supporters clubs in APFSCIL darts and pool competitions. There’s plenty going on...
