London Tigers

London Tigers FC is a non-league football club whose headquarters are in Southall, west London. The club were formed in 1986 as Marylebone FC, before changing their name to London Tigers in 1997 having established themselves a name in Asian competitions around the UK.

Alongside the football team, London Tigers became the leading Asian sports organisation providing the UK Asian community with an opportunity to display their talents in several sports. In 2002 the club became members of the Middlesex League.

After four successful years they were accepted into the Spartan South Midlands League for the 2006-07 season, to provide the opportunity to inner city young players to play football against semi-professional clubs. 

To get a place in the league, Tigers amalgamated with a struggling Kingsbury Town FC, to become Kingsbury London Tigers FC. The 2008-09 season saw the club finish in fifth place in the league and they remained consistent competitors.

However, at the end of the 2010-11 season they decided to move on and change their name back to London Tigers, while Kingsbury Town folded. Tigers moved to a new home Avenue Park, the former home of Viking Greenford FC. 

At the same time work began on the London Tigers Sports Complex at Spikes Bridge Park in nearby Southall. After a few weeks at their new home the club was hit by vandalism as burglars also stole all the copper piping from the changing rooms, leaving the team to complete the season at a variety of 'home' venues.

The damage was repaired in time for the start of the 2012-13 season so that Tigers could resume at Avenue Park. For several seasons the side struggled towards the wrong end of the table with thirteenth the best finish in 2015-16.

Tigers' task was not helped when in March 2017 their Avenue Park ground was broken into and vandalised and used for fly tipping meaning the team had to play their remaining home games as alternative venues.

The team moved to become tenants of Northwood FC at Chestnut Avenue from the summer of 2017. Without home advantage Tigers faced a difficult task which ended in relegation to Division One at the completion of the 2018-19 season. 

Tigers sat eighth in the Division One table when the 2019-20 season was ended early owing to the outbreak of Coronavirus after the club had moved to Spratleys Meadow to become tenants of Amersham Town FC.

The pandemic caused the early abandonment of the 2020-21 campaign, as London Tigers sat bottom of the table without a point after nine games.

London Tigers will play in the Spartan South Midlands League Division One in the 2020-21 season.

My visits

Western Avenue

London Tigers 0 Dunstable Town 3 (Saturday 11th August 2012) Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division (att: 30)

I had intended to visit Avenue Park the previous season, but owing to the vandals it wasn't to be. However, I was on night shift and heading to the glamour FA Cup tie between Wembley and Langford, which was being covered live on ESPN and had an early kick off. 

As the weather was stunning I decided to travel a few miles south at full time to Greenford. The 92 bus dropped me by the main A40 Western Avenue and  set off walking along it, with a doubt or two in my mind that I'd gone the wrong way. I was relieved to see a van pulling into an entrance a bit further up.

I'd heard several reports about Avenue Park, non of them particularly flattering. I walked straight in after arriving five minutes late. When I asked some local youths if there were any programmes, the bloke who appeared in charge. 

He was attempting to get a corner flag to stay upright, which no-one managed for any length of time all day and in the end they completely gave up, kindly took me to the clubhouse to get one. I handed over my £5 admission money plus a quid for a decent programme.

The ground had a small bench seated cover behind the near goal and a cover at the other end made of boarding and scaffold. There was no spectator accommodation down the side by the dug outs and the other side had the narrowest of spaces for fans. 

A fence separated it from a public footpath, where any tightwads could watch for nothing. Personally I'd make any such offenders sit next to the England Band for a season.

There was plenty of early end to end stuff with both sides playing attractive football. The visitors, who had impressed me when beating Luton Town a couple of weeks earlier, went one up with a free header from Jonathan Barnett.

Both keepers were kept busy as both sides went for it, although Town always had a more incisive cutting edge in my opinion. There was some concern that a referees assessor, who I presumed was a YTS journalist at first, scrutinised senior officials. All three did well, although the ref did come across as having to be unnecessarily strict.

At half time I popped into the somewhat spartan clubhouse. I thought £2 was a bit steep for a lucozade, but I understood that clubs need to make a few quid where they could. I was just pleased to see that Tigers had regrouped and got their ground back in action. 

It was nice to see the diversity of both the playing squad and their few supporters. I read that a new sports complex in Spikes Bridge Park was on the way. 

After the break Town extended their lead with a long looping shot from Damen Pickering, which Adam Atour in the home net will have been disappointed to let in. He atoned with some excellent stops as Dunstable took control. 

Tigers had their moments but didn't worry the Town keeper. Tigers star man Kye Hendrix missed a decent opportunity before the play went straight up the other end for Lee Roache to make it three. They also rattled the post in the last seconds, but 4-0 would have been harsh on the home side.

I was back home in Kingsbury at just gone 6pm and got to see plenty of tearful Brazilians coming out of the Olympic final at Wembley. I know who'd had the better day out!

At Reynolds Field, Hanwell

London Tigers 5 Edgware Town 0 (Wednesday 22^nd March 2017) Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division (att: 30)

This fixture was moved to Reynolds Field, the home of Hanwell Town FC as Tigers home further up Western Avenue had been broken into and used as a rubbish dump by the travelling community.

With me having the following day off work, this provided a handy chance for a few pints and relaxation. My Irish pal Mick Deveraux met me at Kingsbury station proudly wearing his Wares hat as we travelled down to Perivale by a couple of buses.

There was time for a pint in the Perivale Farm pub, which was serving quality carvery meals and was noted for any future visits to the ground. We walked a few hundred yards down Perivale lane to the ground entrance. My admission was £6, with a programme costing a further quid.

While there was no beer on hand pump in the clubhouse at Reynolds Farm, there was a decent range of bottles. We took our beer into the stand and used the vacant press eats with tables in front as our own personal bar!

Within minutes we were wondering if the Edgware team had been on the pop for the afternoon as they made one mistake after another.

The first came on two minutes as an awful back pass put in a Tigers forward to score. Within five minutes the normally reliable keeper Cain Davies had let a thirty yard cross sail over his head and into the far corner.

A Wares midfielder was robbed leading to 3-0 before a thirty yard chip made it 4-0. Make no mistake. London Tigers played some smashing football, but they were given a huge hand in their task.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the scorers in the correct order, but Yaseen Abdullah scored twice, with other goals coming from Ruben Coloval, Claudio Jilavu and Josemar Lopes Gomes.

Edgware put in a much better performance after the break and had a few decent efforts of but the game was all over long before then. We continued to enjoy beers and a laugh. Some of the exasperated shouts at the referee from senior away fans amused the younger supporters of the Tigers.

Yahya El Kabouche was sent off for the ‘home’ side after retaliating stupidly to a challenge from a Wares player. Despite this Tigers added a fifth goal before full time.

The twenty five visiting fans out of a crowd of 30 were in phlegmatic mood back in the bar. We hung around while I followed the bus times on my phone App. We eventually caught the 297 to Wembley Park before heading to JJ Moons at Kingsbury for the final hour to catch up with other pals.

It had been a disappointing game attending as Edgware fans, as the team continued to spiral downwards towards the drop zone.