Club History

Situated on the banks of the River Great Ouse, 16 miles North West of Cambridge, on the A14. Godmanchester is a town, not a village as it was chartered in 1212 and again in 1604. Godmanchester has been inhabited for over 2000 years and was a very important Roman settlement.

Football has been played in Godmanchester since the late 1890’s

Godmanchester Rovers came into existence in 1911, previously playing as Godmanchester Town.

The first recorded mention of the club is from the ‘Cambridge Independent Press’ newspaper dated Friday 26th December 1913 where Godmanchester Rovers had a fixture against St-Ives on Boxing Day.

During the 1928–29 season, when they won the Hunts Junior Cup. They played in the Huntingdonshire League for many years before joining the Cambridgeshire League. They won the Hunts Junior Cup again in 1988–89, and in 1992 were promoted to the top division of the Cambridgeshire League. In 1994–95 they won the League Cup, retaining it for the next two seasons. However, they were relegated to the Senior Division in 2000.

With the club about to move into a new ground, they made a speculative application to join the Eastern Counties League in 2002. Despite being in the second tier of the Cambridgeshire League, the club were successful. They finished bottom of the division in 2004–05, but were not relegated as the league was under strength in terms of numbers. In 2011–12 the club won the Eastern Counties Division One on goal difference to earn promotion to the Premier Division, also winning the Division One Knock-out Cup, defeating Whitton United 1–0 in the final.

In the 2014-15 season the club finished as runners-up in the Premier Division also adding the Hunts Senior Cup to an all-round successful record for the season. At the end of season, Nev Nania, retired from his role as First Team manager and took the position of Football Consultant within the club.

The 2015-16 saw the appointment of Matt Clements as First Team Manager, with Matty Haniver keeping his role as First Team Player Coach. The season ended as the previous season with a second place finish, unbeaten in the last 17 League games.

Before the start of the 2016-17 season Rovers saw the resignation of Matt Clements and the appointment of Adrian Cambridge as First Team coach. At the same time, much of the established first team players moved to different clubs, leaving Aidy Cambridge with the job of rebuilding the first team. Shortly into the new season Matty Haniver, 1st team Player Coach, departed, with his role filled by John Bitting.

After 19 games in charge, Manager Aidy Cambridge and Assistant John Bitting stood down from their roles at the club. The clubs football consultant, Nev Nania took temporary charge for the next home match.

Former Godmanchester Rovers player, Chris Hyem was appointed First Team manager after being released from Histon FC. Hyem started his tenure with five straight wins, rapidly moving the team up the league and well away from the relegation zone. After a brief run of loses and draws over the Christmas and New Year period, Rovers found their stride again and finished in 12th place.

After securing Premiership football for the 2017-2018 season Chris Hyem stood down as manager, electing for a player-assistant role. Ollie Drake was appointed first team manager, fresh from winning the Kershaw League, Premier Division title with Hardwick. Drake will be joined at Rovers by his father Steve.

The 2017-2018 Season was marred with high number of postponed games creating a large backlog of matches to be played, due to severe weather, notably ‘The Beast From The East’ and heavy rain.

Ollie Drakes aim for the 2017-2018 was to build on the progress made by Chris Hyem during 2016-2017 season and secure a mid-table position. The first few months, in Ollie’s own words ‘A little lack luster’ starting with a run of draws and losses both at home and away.

Results started to improve with the return of a number of players that departed at the end of the 2016-2017 season with a run of 7 winning games putting Rovers in 10th position at the start of October.  The next 6 weeks then proved to be a difficult period, losing three premiership games, and knocked out of the Hunts Senior Cup and FA Vase.

Fortune then returned and from Mid-November through to the end of the season, Rovers won 24, drew 1 and lost 6 of their remaining 31 matches landing Roves a 4th place finish in the seasons 24 team league.  This also included a run of 9 games undefeated.

During the season break work was undertaken to add addition drainage to the pitch to elevate potential postponed matches.

Starting this new season, Chris Hyem has stepped down from his assistant manager role to focus on his player role at the club. A majority of the 2017-2018 squad have signed on for a further year with further new signings to further bolster the squad for a promotion push.

Our reserves have appointed Alex Ramos as manager and Stephen Hurst as his assistant. Stephen will also have a role as reserves player.

Godmanchester Rovers is very much a family orientated club and most of the improvements to the facilities have been carried out by the committee, volunteers and friends of the club. 90% of the current first team squad are local lads with seven of them from local families.

The 2018 -19 season sees the club participating in the Thurlow Nunn Premier, Cambs Mead Plant 1B and the Thurlow Nunn Under 18 Youth League.  Additionally, the club has Junior Youth sides between the ages of U7 and U15 playing under the Godmanchester Town FC name.