Racing Club Warwick

Ben Foster came through the youth ranks at Racing Club Warwick before Stoke City took him on, a path that eventually led to Manchester United, Watford, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Wrexham, and to eight caps for England. Townsend Meadow was where that started, on a ground the club has held since the 1960s and rebuilt in 2016 with new stands, long after the team itself had already changed its identity once: it began life in 1919 as Saltisford Rovers, and only in 1970 took the name Racing Club Warwick.

The heaviest years of silverware sit a long way back. Four Warwick League titles in a row through the 1930s, along with five Warwick Cinderella Cups between 1935 and 1939. The one final still worth naming is the 1949–50 Birmingham & District Alliance Senior Cup, won against Birmingham City. More recent success has been thinner but not absent: the Midland Football Combination Premier Division in 1988, a play-off title in the United Counties League Premier Division South in 2024, and a Birmingham Senior Cup final lost the same season.

Local derbies give the club its sharpest edge. Rugby Town, Leamington and Coventry Sphinx are the three names that turn an ordinary league fixture into something else, matches where the history between the sides tends to matter as much as the table.