Bideford A.F.C.
association football club
Bideford Association Football Club is a football club based in Bideford, Devon, England. They are currently members of the Southern League Division One South and play at the Sports Ground. The club are nicknamed "The Robins" due to their all-red strip.
History
Bideford Town was established in 1883 and spent most of their history playing in the North Devon League. In 1947 the club was reformed as Bideford A.F.C., and joined Section A of the North Devon League. Although they finished bottom of the division, they remained in Section A for the 1948–49 season, which saw them finish sixth. At the end of the season they joined Division Three of the Western League, which they won at the first attempt, winning 19 of their 20 matches and drawing the other to earn promotion to Division Two. In 1951–52 they won Division Two, and were promoted to Division One.
The league was reduced to a single division in 1960, and after finishing as runners-up in 1962–63, they won the league the following season. In 1964–65 the club reached the first round of the FA Cup for the first time.
The public source identifies “Bideford A.F.C.” as association football club. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bideford, association and football.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bideford A.F.C.”, the useful work is to connect “association football club” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4904095. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1883, 1947, 1948 and 1951.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bideford A.F.C.”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bideford A.F.C. primary sources, Bideford A.F.C. archive and Bideford research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bideford A.F.C.”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bideford A.F.C.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.