Club Background

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. Runo 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. Esprit F.C. joined the Football Association and in 1996 were elected into their local Sunday league, and replaced the jumpers for real goalposts.

Esprit has always believed in fair play and respect towards their opponents and officials, part of the reason why everyone associated with the club enjoyed playing on Sunday mornings. Esprit slowly 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.In 1999, the club debts were cleared so a new club account was opened. Within a few seasons Esprit were competing and got promoted twice and started to win some silverware in the cups.

At the start of the 2008/09 season Esprit branched out and created a Saturday side in the Ilford and District League. The Saturday side in their first season together finished 3rd, narrowly missing out on the league title but at least won promotion at their first attempt. They also finished runners-up in the St. Mary's Cup, reaching the final without conceding a goal. They players gaining valuable experiance by playing under the floodlights in a stadium. It was a good season but it could have been a great season as the side were 2 games away from a historic double. Hopefully the club will continue to push on but the challenges will no doubt be harder.

Esprit Forever !