Tampines Rovers Football Club is a professional football club that plays in Singapore's S.League.Founded in 1945, Tampines Rovers is one of the oldest surviving football clubs in Singapore. The club has been Singapore's national league champions five times. They won Singapore's National Football League three times in 1979, 1980 and 1984. The club then became a founding member of the S.League in 1996, and won the S.League championship title twice, in 2004 and 2005. Tampines Rovers also won the Singapore Cup in 2002, 2004, and 2006. In 2005, they became the first Singapore team to win the ASEAN Club Championship.
Tampines Rovers' home ground is the Tampines Stadium, and their games are some of the most well attended in the S.League. Their mascot is a stag, and the team is often referred to as "The Stags".
The club's main rivals are Geylang United FC, and matches between these two teams are often referred to as the "Eastern Derby".
Several football enthusiasts from Tampines decided to form a football club in 1945. After many name changes, they finally settled on "Tampines Rovers". The club debuted in Division 3A of the Singapore Amateur Football Association League in 1954, but the next two decades saw little success. In 1974, Tampines were placed in Division II of the newly-formed National Football League.
1975 was a watershed year for Tampines, as they won all their league matches and were promoted to Division I. The Stags also reached the final of the President's Cup, losing 0-1 to the Singapore Armed Forces Sports Association in front of a crowd of 30,000, which remains a record attendance for a domestic competition in Singapore. They continued to challenge for honours for the next decade, emerging as champions of Division I in 1979, 1980 and 1984.
In 1988, Tampines were relegated to Division I, where they languished for several years. To arrest the decline, a group of fans and former players and managers submitted a proposal for a change in club management. Robert Tan was appointed as manager, while former Singapore and Brunei trainer Hussein Aljunied coached the Stags. Under the new management, Tampines finished first in Division I in 1994, and their convincing displays led to their selection as one of eight clubs to compete in the newly-formed S.League.
Tampines's S.League performances in the late-1990s fell short of expectations. In the inaugural season of the S.League, which was split into two series, the Stags finished eighth in the Tiger Beer Series and seventh in the Pioneer Series. Two sixth-place finishes in 1997 and 1998 were followed by a tenth-place finish in 1999. The turn of the millennium saw the Stags undergo an overhaul, which included the signing of 13 new players. This was not, however, matched by an immediate improvement; they were seventh in 2000 and sixth the year after.
In 2002, Tampines secured the services of Malaysian coach Chow Kwai Lam, who guided them to the Singapore Cup and a fourth-place finish in the S.League. However, during the 2003 season, Chow resigned as coach, citing differences with the club management, and the Stags ended in fourth place. Under the new coach, Vorawan Chitanavich, Tampines netted the S.League and Singapore Cup double in 2004. The following season, they successfully defended their S.League title, and were named the 'S.League Team of the Decade'. They also became the first Singapore team to win the ASEAN Club Championship, beating Pahang of Malaysia 4-2 in the final in Brunei. The Stags were Singapore Cup champions in 2006, but finished runners-up to SAFFC in the S.League. In 2007, Noh Alam Shah became the first player to score 100 goals for Tampines.
Competitive Record
S.League record
2008 - 4th place
2007 - 3rd place
2006 - Runners-up
2005 - Champions
2004 - Champions
2003 - 4th place
2002 - 4th place
2001 - 6th place
2000 - 7th place
1999 - 10th place
1998 - 6th place
1997 - 6th place
1996 - Series 1: 8th place; Series 2: 7th place
Singapore Cup Record
2009 - Qualified for Quarter-finals
2008 - 3rd place
2007 - Runners-up
2006 - Champions
2005 - Semi-finals
2004 - Champions
2003 - Quarter-finals
2002 - Champions
2001 - First round
2000 - Quarter-finals
1999 - Quarter-finals
1998 - First round
1997 - Semi-finals
Singapore League Cup Record
2009 - Quarter-finals
2008 - Quarter-finals
2007 - Quarter-finals
ASEAN Club Championship
2005 - Champions
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