The story of our club, decade by decade
1990-1999
In 1995, the club changed its name to Barnwood United. Having finished 3rd in Gloucestershire Northern Senior to Division 2 as Vikings in the 1994-95 season, the newly named side gained promotion to Division 1. This remains the highest step of the Football pyramid that the club has reached, which they emulated again in 2009 and 2026.
In 1996-97 the team were runners-up in Gloucestershire Northern Senior to Division 1; to this day, the remains our highest finish in the footballing pyramid.
The Reserve team continued on with their success, winning Stroud and District Football League Division 5 and 4 in 1991 and 1993 respectively, and finishing as runners-up in Division 3 in 1996. At that time, only the Champions were promoted, the Reserves missing out on reaching SDFL Division 2; a feat they did not achieve until 2026.
In 1999, just 3 seasons after our highest ever league finish, an aging talent pool and lack of squad depth led to the difficult decision to withdraw from Gloucestershire Northern Senior League and operate just one side. This was so that the club could focus efforts on developing a new young squad in Stroud and District Football League Division 3.
At this time, Phil Powell was coming to the end of his playing days at Barnwood United, where he had been since 1991. He was appointed as manager, initially as player/manager, and he recruited Herbie Ellis as his assistant manager and fitness coach.
Crest and colours
The original Barnwood United club crest was created by Tony Brown. As a lifelong Aston Villa fan, Brown chose claret & blue with gold trim. Key elements of the original club crest include:
Trees representing woods.
An owl which is intended to represent a barn owl so that, together with the woods, this signifies Barnwood (Barn [owl] - wood). However the image depicts an owl with pointy ears, which a barn owl does not have.
A football to represent the nature of the club.
A Viking helmet in honour of the Clubs prior name.
The crest also adorns an established ('EST.') date. Images don't provide total clarity of the year it represents. Vikings was founded in 1978 and the date the club name changed to Barnwood United was at some point between 1995 and 2000.
In 2020 the club sanctioned a revamp of the badge, in order to modernise it and make available high quality resolution images. The new badge deliberately remained recognisable to the original. Notable alterations included:
A simplified colour palette; removal of the gold outline around the trees, a change of the football to be gold outline with no trim, a change of the text from black to gold, use of only gold in the owl. This reduced the number of colours from 7 (claret, blue, gold, green, beige, white, black) down to just 4 (claret, blue, gold, green).
The pointy owl ears became less prominent to be more identifiable as a barn owl.
Club crest early 2000s
