The club was founded in 1876 as Bangor F.C., and took its present name in 1923, and plays at the Farrar Road Stadium, Bangor, where their ground accommodates 2200 spectators (800 seated).
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In the 1961/62 season, Bangor City won the Welsh Cup, and consequently were entered in the European Cup Winners' Cup for the first time. In the first round, Bangor were drawn against the Italian Cup winners, AS Napoli, at the time one of Europe's greatest football teams. A thrashing was confidently expected. In the first leg, played at Farrar Road, unexpectedly Bangor won 2-0; three weeks later, in front of a crowd of 80,000 in Naples, the result was 3-1 in AS Napoli's favour. Under modern rules, Bangor would have progressed under the "away goals" rule, but at the time the tie was drawn 3-3 and a playoff had to be played, at Arsenal F.C's Highbury Stadium, in London (this was the first ECWC tie played at Highbury), and this time AS Napoli won 2-1, scoring the winner seven minutes from the end of the match, to put an end to Bangor's dreams for the moment.
In 1985 Bangor City were back in the ECWC, in the first round drawn against the Norwegian cup winners, Fredrikstad. The first leg in Norway was a 1-1 draw, while the return leg in Bangor was a 0-0 draw, resulting in Bangor progressing to the second round, where they were drawn against the mighty Spanish side Atletico Madrid. Atletico were expected to win easily, but in the event the first leg in Bangor was only won 2-0; in the return leg in Madrid, Bangor won much admiration with a dogged defence which only allowed Atletico one more goal, and Bangor saved an Atletico penalty kick.
In 1994 as League of Wales Champions, Bangor City entered the UEFA Cup. They were drawn against the Icelandic champions, IA Akranes, and were seriously hampered by UEFA's ruling that a team could only contain three foreigners -- many of Bangor's team were English, and despite some creative genealogy it was not possible to field a full-strength Welsh side. Akranes (fielding three Yugoslav players!) won the leg in Bangor by 2-1 (the match was played in the close season when Bangor hadn't played a competitive match in three months), while Bangor lost the match in Iceland by 2-0.
In 1995 Bangor City retained the League of Wales championship, and this time drew the Polish champions Widzew Lodz in the preliminary round of the UEFA Cup. Lodz were an extremely powerful side, having beaten Liverpool F.C, Juventus and Manchester United F.C in earlier campaigns, and quite simply outclassed Bangor City, winning 4-0 in Bangor and 1-0 in Lodz. On a lighter note, scores of Lodz and Bangor supporters joined each other after the match and proceeded to drink dry every pub in Bangor High Street!
In 1998 Bangor were back in the Cup Winners' Cup, and were drawn against the Finnish side FC Haka. Unfortunately between winning the Welsh Cup and playing Haka, one of Bangor's periodic bouts of boardroom shenanigans had led to the departure of the manager and most of the team, so new manager John Hulse had the impossible task of putting together a completely new side, a week before the start of the Welsh football season (and three-quarters of the way through the Finnish football season). Unsurprisingly Bangor were well beaten, 2-0 at home, and 1-0 in Finland.
History
Bangor City F.C. is one of Wales' older football clubs, and has an illustrious history of competition in Europe. They were founder members of the North Wales Coast League in 1893, the Welsh National League in 1921, the North Wales Combination in 1930, the Welsh League (North) in 1935, the Northern Premier League in 1968, the Alliance Premier League in 1979, and in 1992 the League of Wales. Biggest victories and losses
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