A BRIEF HISTORY

Hallam & Redmires Rangers Junior Football Club was founded in 1970. Our founder, John Melbourne, was one of the founder members of the Sheffield & District Junior Sunday League, which became the largest junior football league in Europe.

For the first 20 years of our existence we only had one team, as junior football on Sundays was actually frowned upon by the Football Association. In those early days training took place at Tapton School and matches were played on the pitches at Hallam Primary School.

In 1998 Paul Michalowski became Club Secretary and in 2005, under Paul and the then Chairman George Walker, the club moved to Redmires Fields and adopted green and white hoops as the club colours. Redmires remains our home ground to this day and all our teams still proudly wear the green and white hoops each Saturday and Sunday. An impressive 24 years on, Paul is still our Club Secretary!

Our club has gone from strength to strength in recent years, with other notable milestones including:

• The establishment in 2009 of our Saturday academy for children in school years Y1, Y2 and Y3, which is now known as Junior Rangers. Many of our Junior Rangers have gone on to represent our teams

• The founding of our first girls’ team in 2017, which is still thriving as the current Hallam Rangers Girls U18s

• The creation in 2020, together with Vertex Coaching, of our Wildcats football and activity centre for girls aged 5 to 11. As with Junior Rangers, many of our Wildcats have graduated to represent our girls’ teams

At the start of the 2022-23 season, despite the recent challenges to junior football posed by the covid pandemic, we are delighted to have grown to 22 teams with over 300 players, both boys and girls.  This includes 13 boys’ teams, representing every age group from Under-8s to Under-18s, and 9 girls’ teams, including teams in every age group from U14s down. These teams are looked after by over 60 tireless volunteer managers and coaches, including a rapidly growing number of women.

The growth of our club means that our teams now play matches at three local sites – Redmires Fields, Castle Dyke and Hallam Primary School.  In addition, our teams train during the winter months at King Edwards VII Lower School and Tapton School.  Our headquarters for meetings is The Sportsman in Lodge Moor, just next to our home ground.

In 2022, we were proud to receive recognition for our recent achievements by being awarded Sheffield & Hallamshire Football Association’s Grassroots Club of the Year, in large part due to our efforts to expand girls’ football in Sheffield and to encourage more women to volunteer in football. We are also proud that the club has achieved and maintained FA Charter Standard status for over 10 years.

For any queries about Hallam & Redmires Rangers, including to check if your child is able to join one of our teams, please contact hallamredmiresjfc@gmail.com

Andy Nolan
Club Chairman