Wolverhampton & Perton Churches

History: Wolverhampton & Perton Church FC got it's title from the fact that the first players came from Wolverhampton and Perton. The exact reason why James Orotayo (one of the co-founders) inserted the word 'Church' rather than 'Churches' has now been lost in the mists of time. The churches which supplied players then were Penn Christian Fellowship, Perton Church, St. Joseph of Arimithea Merry Hill, St. Judes Wolverhampton and West Park Baptist. The churches that currently supply our players are Christ the King Aldersley, Penn Christian Fellowship and St. Judes Wolverhampton. The Club was formed in November 1994 by James Orotayo and Pete Holliday. For 1994/5 the club mainly played friendlies but were also allowed to participate in the Mercian Christian Football League's (MCFL) Cup competition, reaching the final that year. For the next few seasons they played in the MCFL, moving to the West Midlands Christian Football League for the 1998/9 season, following MCFL's collapse. Prior to being to purchase their own kit the club played in a variety of kits - whatever we could borrow! But our first official kit was yellow shirts, black shorts and black socks. In 2001/2 the club changed their home strip to red/black striped shirts, black shorts and black socks with the yellow (and later gold) shirts becoming the away strip.
During 2003/4 we said goodbye to the gold tops and an all blue strip became our away colours. Originally James was the secretary, Pete Holliday and Rob Gough comanagers and Stephen Lord Treasurer. With the exception of Stephen all of the club's officers were also players. Much has changed over the years and although James is still involved with the club (as player and Chairman), the club is now essentially run by Richard Webster (Secretary), Andy Page (Manager) and Scott Lindsay (Treasurer).

For the Cup Final Rich put together a list of all the players who played in WMCFL for us, a few from the years before so he's the best person to contact for that. Unfortunately some of our early paperwork has been misplaced so I can't tell you who the original team were, but suffice to say I'm the only person who has played for the club every year since 1994, although some people (e.g. Paul Whittick) who played for a few years, went away and came back.

Sadly most of our "successes" have been in small sided competitions! In 11-a-side we were runners up in the MCFL 1994/5 Cup final, were runners-up in the WMCFL 2nd Division in the first year we played, and were runners-up in both Cup and League this year - always the bridesmaid! On a positive note we avoided relegation (albeit narrowly) in our first two years of being in the WMCFL first division, and that has helped to secure our current position. James Orotayo. 2005

2006 - W&P continue to perform up with the best finishing second in the League for the second season in succession. 2006 was again a bit of a disappointment as they lead the League and looked like they would win it until well after Christmas. Ed Walker

2008 - 2007 saw Wolves slip out of the top flight and drop into Division Two. I did think that they'd bounce straight back but due primarily to a shortage of players, they didn't make it ending fifth, seven points adrift. Wolves still have a nucleus of good players with bags of experience but are probably just three or four off a team that can dominate. I went to watch them after they knew they were out of the hunt. They turned up with a bare eleven and for me played a great game of football and really enjoyed it. Ed Walker June 2008