AFC Solihull were founded in 2012 by David Tyler with a community youth under 10’s team that started playing in the Central Warwickshire Youth Football League. That year this fledgling side became League champions of their division, and our ‘Inform-Involve-Inspire’ club philosophy was born. The club has competed in the Midlands Football League Division 3 since 2015 when the club merged with a men’s team playing in the Stratford Alliance League.
In January 2021 Stefan Raymond was brought in as Sporting Director to oversee the club from an infrastructure perspective. One of Stefan’s first jobs was to appoint former Solihull Moors FC defender and Birmingham City FC Community coach Joe Ballinger as first team head coach. Joe’s philosophy was one of free-flowing attacking football and attractive build up play.
The team went through a major rebuild in the summer of 2021 with the club going into the season with the youngest average age in the league. The majority of the team were playing their first season in men’s football, despite this, during the first few months they were top of the league, however after a poor winter period, the club ended up finishing just outside the promotion places in 4th place, which was a major improvement on the 14th placed finish the season before.
The 2022/23 season was a painful one to take as the team finished in 3rd place behind 2nd place Central Ajax FC and missing out on promotion by just 4 points having lost 2 of their final 3 matches of the season, one of which was to the eventual runners up Central Ajax FC 3 vs 2 away in their penultimate match. However hard it was to take, upon reflection it was another successful season with an improvement on the 4th place finish the previous season and things were looking positive for the following season.
Season 2023/24 saw Joe Ballinger move on to pastures new taking up the role of Coach at Romulus FC and Dean Newman took over at the helm joining from local rivals Silhill FC. The club recruited a number of experienced players to strengthen the squad with a view to finally achieving promotion to Division 2. Off the field the club entered into a ‘partnership agreement’ with long standing local club, Leafield Athletic FC in order to help provide a pathway for the development of local young players, this agreement also meant the club would play its home matches at Rumbush Lane, Solihull. A restructuring at the club saw a new board of Directors appointed which included Tim Delaney taking over as Club Chairman providing his extensive experience of the non-league circuit having been with Solihull Moors FC in the National League.
The team went on to win the League title on Saturday 4th May with a 2 vs 1 home victory over Castle Vale Town and were crowned Division 3 Champions on Monday 6th May following an impressive 4 vs 0 win at home to Feckenham FC in their final match of the season. The team topped the league table at the beginning of December and never lost that position finally finishing with impressive stats of winning 26 out of 32 matches, drawing 2 and losing just 4, amassing a total of 80 points and scoring 101 goals ! This was a fantastic achievement by Manager, Dean Newman (in his first season at the club) and Assistant Manager, Tayla Brown plus all of the players and staff. Season 2024/25 will be a tough but exciting opportunity for the team to test themselves against strong opposition such as Knowle FC, Birmingham Utd FC, Alcester Town FC, Earlswood Town FC and Hampton FC to name but a few.