The idea of Esprit Football Club came about in the mid 1990's when a group of school boys, having started higher education were leaving behind their usual weekly kickabout in the local parks of East London. Onur Gokdemir, one of those boys wanted to create a football club so that they could carry on playing the beautiful game with a formality towards it. He set up the club, and with his student loan hired a pitch, purchased a kit, and invested in some equipment.

In the summer of 1996, Esprit F.C. joined the Football Association and replaced the jumpers for real goalposts as they entered a local league and were duly elected into the Sunday Corinthian League.

The first couple of seasons were difficult but enjoyable as Esprit established themselves into the league and started to recover financially. It was a very young side and it was just a matter of gaining experiance. Having survived many relegation battles, once with the last kick of the season, the players gradually improved and the club started to take things a bit more seriously. In 1999, the club debts were cleared so a new club account was opened.

Settled with key players, they finally gained promotion on the last day of the season in 2000 from Division Three by finishing third, their best finish in the Sunday Corinthian League. The following two seasons brought mid table finishes and 2 cup semi-finals. Finally after 7 years in the Sunday Corinthian and some good memories, Esprit decided to move to the more competitive Essex Sunday Corinthian Football League.

It was a dream debut season in 2003, as Esprit gained promotion by finishing joint runners-up from a tough division at the first time of asking, even though the new league represented a higher standard of football. Promotion was quickly followed by their first piece of silverware as the club won the Creative Printers Cup in 2004 which led to a sponsorship deal with the Creative Printers Of London Company. Esprit's 10th season also started promisingly as they retained the Creative Printers Cup in 2005.

The club continued to improve and became more competitive yet still keeping their honest fair play attitude, which paid dividends as the club won back to back Sportsmanship Awards in 2007 and 2008. The icing on the cake however was winning the prestiage League Cup in 2009 at Thurrock FC, the club's first real major honour. Hopefully this will be the beginning of better things for the purple panthers. Esprit Forever !