The History of
Bracknell Town Ladies FC
Bracknell Town Ladies started life back in 1988 as Pinewood FC playing friendlies against other teams – in 1991 they changed their name to Bracknell Town Ladies & under the management of Eric Cox joined the U16 Southern Region league.
The club has seen quite a few managers during their time and in the 94/95 season Martin Smith and Wayne Jacobs took the ladies to the chairman’s up final of the old Southern Division 4 league and winning!
In 95/96 Bracknell gained promotion into division 2 by winning the Division 3 Championship and a new season (1996/97) with yet another new management with Lynda Tinkley taking over the job. In that season Bracknell again reached the final of the Chairman's cup but this time they lost after extra time. The following season (97/98) Bracknell again performed well finishing runner up in the restructured 1st division (the old 2nd Division) and were promoted to the Premier Division.
During the 98/99 season Darwin Melbourne joined the club as the new manager and brought with him an U16 team with the intent of introducing a junior team to the club. With a number of retirements from the senior team however it became necessary for the two teams to merge with Lynda Tinkley moving to the role of Chairperson and Darwin Melbourne taking on the management of the team.
In 1999/2000 Bracknell again reached the final of the Chairman’s Cup which they went on to win for the second time in their history.
In the summer of 2001 Farnborough Town merged with Bracknell Town Ladies and through this for the first time Bracknell where able to enter a first and reserve team into the league. However this proved relatively short lived as the numbers needed to run two teams was hard to sustain and only managed to host a reservce team for 1 season.
Darwin Melbourne stood down from the committee at the end of 2002/03 season and the final blow to the club mid way through 2003/04 season was the departure of the chairperson Lynda Tinkley. Niall Dooley joined the club in March 2005 and in his first full season in charge steered the ladies to the top of the table with the support of assistant coach Conrad Witney.
Niall stepped down from his managerial role at the end of the 2006/07 season and Conrad took over and continued to coach and manage the team with enthusiasm. Conrad's career with the ladies was short lived when work and personal committments meant he had to hand over the role to Dave Ward who has now been with the club since January 2008.
Dave's first full season at the helm (2008-09) saw the team win the prestigious Berks and Bucks Women's Cup for the first time, beating Chesham United Ladies from the South West Combination league in the final. The team finished 3rd in the league and also got as far as the 1st round proper of the FA Women's Cup.
During the 2009-10 season Bracknell launched their second team who won the division 3 south league during their first season and go from strength to strength in the Thames Valley League under the management of Michelle Hughes (2009-10) and Ben Swaffield (2010-11 ongoing).