Club History
29 Sep 2008

RYPSA FC was established in early 2008 in order to offer the local youths of the surrounding areas of Redbridge, Wanstead, and Ilford the opportunity to come together and compete in a competitive environment.

The mastermind behind the club was Faheem Ikramullah, who had a vision of creating a multi-national team, bringing together people of all backgrounds, which would be able to compete at the highest levels of amateur football. However, through his time with working with top Asian club London APSA, Faheem knew he could not do this alone. He immediately went about assembling his backroom staff, recruiting Anees Ikramullah and Usman Ahmed as coaches and Moshin Mir as secretary. Faheem himself would hold the position of Chairman and Manager.

Through the summer of 2008 the four members began assembling their squad, through links with youth teams, advertising and holding regular and open training sessions. The journey was long and tiresome, with many an evening spent long in the night working on strategies as to how to get the club off the ground and to ensure a stable foundation.

Once the word spread, the players came in large numbers. Training sessions became more intense and fruitful, until finally the time had come to decide on the name and league to play in for the club.

Many names were considered during the summer, but the one which was finally decided on showed the inheritance of the club as well as the thinking behind it. Redbridge Young Peoples Sports Association was officially revealed as a club on Friday 8 August, when the London FA officially accepted them as a playing member of the Football Association. As an acronym the club would be better known as RYPSA FC.

In the first ever pre-season friendly for RYPSA FC, Scott Campbell was selected as club captain with Govind Sira as vice-captain. RYPSA’s first ever game proved fruitful for the club and had major signs of optimism, as the club ran out 11-1 winners against an ‘Anees select 11’. The first goal-scorer for RYPSA was Ade Oyegoke. Another successful 4-1 friendly win against Docks FC followed as RYPSA built towards the start of the Ilford and District League Season.

Season 1: 2008-09

Despite their dominance in the pre-season matches, the first official RYPSA FC game did not go according to plan, as the inexperienced, with an average of 17/18, and somewhat makeshift nature of the RYPSA team showed, as Forest United Reserves ran out 6-1 victors. Despite the obvious set back, there were positives to gain from the game, not least the first official goal by a RYPSA FC player, Dennis Karmaj who curled a 25-yard free-kick into the top corner to level the score line at 1-1. As the season progresses it will be interesting to see what the future holds for this new, young and exciting RYPSA team…