Sporting Bengal United Football Club, nicknamed “The Bengal Tigers,” is a non-league football club based in Mile End, Tower Hamlets.
Established in 1996, they currently compete in the Essex Senior League, which is part of the ninth tier of English football. The team calls Mile End Stadium their home ground.
A tour to Bangladesh by London-based Bangladeshi footballers exposed divisions within the community and inspired the creation of a side that would give young Asian players a path into higher-level competition.
Sporting Bengal United FC, formed in 1996, gathered Bangladeshi talent, won UK Asian Championship titles and rose from Sunday football to the Kent Senior League by 2003, becoming one of the first Asian clubs to enter the FA Cup. The side moved to the Essex Senior League in 2011-12, finishing 11th and reaching the FA Vase third round, and was League Cup runner-up in 2013-14. Former Dagenham & Redbridge defender Anwar Uddin led the team in 2015-16, and Imrul Gazi guided it to a first FA Cup first-qualifying-round berth the following year. An eighth-place finish in 2018-19 was followed by relegation after the Covid-hit 2021-22 season.
Under Steve Clark, relegation was overturned at the first attempt with promotion from the Thurlow Nunn League First Division South in 2022-23, a season that also equalled the club’s best FA Vase run. The momentum continued in 2023-24 as Sporting Bengal amassed a record 70 points, defeated Romford 3-1 in the play-off final and secured promotion to Step 4 and the Isthmian League.