In the beginning Exeter created St Sidwell’s United, and then St Sidwell created Exeter City. It’s May 1904, and the lads of St Sidwell United are in the pub having a pint or two during the general meeting. The Red Lion in St Sidwell then lit up as they agreed that the city of Exeter should have its own team, and as they were the best around it should be them, and lo, Exeter City were founded in 1904. Like all the best club’s in England, Exeter has stayed true to the city’s coat of arms and aspects from it. Unlike those who have hoped that having a business logo on their shirts would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. For the smaller club’s it changes little financially and cheapens the kit, the game, the club and above all, my site.
The Exeter City badge is a shield, halved in red and black. (PIC 1) A banner heralds the club name and within the shield is another shield supported by two winged horses, and this is the city’s coat of arms. (PIC 2) The arms were granted in August, 1564. Exeter’s arms are very ancient, and depict the long gone Rougemont Castle. The distinctive form of the castle is triangular and triple-towered. Red and black in the shield represent, Fortitude (Red), and Constancy (Black) The crest is a golden-crowned red lion, holding a golden orb. This is for Richard, the Earl of Cornwall, The Holy Roman Emperor. The same lion appears in the arms of some of the towns in Devon. The supporters are winged horses. A horse with wings is referred to as Pegasus, from the name of the winged horse of Greek mythology which sprang from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. The wings are charged with blue waves and represent the river Exe which once made the city a major port. The motto is, “SEMPER FIDELIS” and translates as, Ever Faithful.
Queen Elizabeth I, used the same motto and it is said by some that the queen granted the motto to the city in 1588, thanking them for all the dosh they had to hand over to help build the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada. The Spanish Armada was a fleet of 130 ships that sailed from Corunna in May 1588, with the sole purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England, but they didn’t reckon on meeting Sir Frannie Drake.
I also unearthed a coin from 1792, with the Exeter arms on it. (PIC 3) Well, when I say unearthed, I mean I found it on the internet. The halfpenny token was issued by Samuel Kingdon, an ironmonger and haberdasher in Exeter. The heads side depicts Bishop Blaize, patron saint of the woollen industry. At this time Exeter owed much of its wealth to the cloth industry. It was not uncommon for wealthy landowners or factory workers to pay their workers with their own minted coins so that they could only spend their wages in the owner’s shops and pubs.
An early Exeter badge has just the shield with the triple-towered castle. (PIC 4) The motto of ever-faithful certainly describes the loyal supporters of Exeter City, who in the club’s centenary year of 2004 came to the rescue after the blue meanies busted the club and took the chairman, his missus and the vice-chairman off for questioning. The supporters took over the club, bought it back from the administrators, and the rest, as they say, is history. Oh, and the chairman John Russell got 21 months in jail for fraudulent trading.
The name of Exeter is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word Escanceaster, taken from the anglicised form of the river Exe, and the Latin word castrum, or Roman word Caster, meaning a fortified town. The club’s nickname is “The Grecians” and I can hear you say: “What the Hellenic has that got to do with Exeter”? Well, the story goes that the earlier club, St Sidwell’s United, had the nickname due to the fact that St Sidwell sits outside the city walls, and so were called Grecians by those within the city walls. Now in the epic poem, the Iliad by Homer, the city of Troy lay in siege for over ten years by the Greeks outside the walls. So the name Grecians, meaning Greeks, means those that lay outside the city walls. Possibly one of the best origins of a nickname I have come across. So good, in fact, that Exeter City took it with them in 1904.
Exeter plays at St James Park and has done so since their formation. It holds 8,696 Grecians, who are united in their rivalry with Plymouth Argyle. So there we have it. We have ancient Greek in the nickname, and Greek mythology in the badge and if you want to learn more about “The Grecians” I make no Apollogies for sending you to www.exetercityfc.co.uk
