The Exiles
The Exiles
The incredible true story of Newport County AFC — a club that refused to die. From financial collapse and expulsion from the Football League, through twenty-one years of non-league exile, to FA Cup giant killings and a Wembley homecoming. This is survival, defiance, and the unbreakable bond between a town and its team.
DirectorsKieran Baker, Haydn Smith
ProducerKieran Baker
StudioPolitical Bytes LLC
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1988
The Fall
After sixty seasons in the Football League, Newport County finished bottom of the Fourth Division with just 25 points. Within months the club was bankrupt, expelled from the Conference, and gone — debts of £330,000 and a century of history dissolved overnight.
1989
The Exiles
Four hundred supporters refused to let the club die. They reformed Newport AFC, entered the Hellenic League — four divisions below where they'd been — and played their home matches eighty miles away in Moreton-in-Marsh. They won the league double in year one.
2013
Homecoming
A 2-0 victory over Wrexham at Wembley — the first final between two Welsh clubs — returned Newport County to the Football League after a twenty-five-year absence. The city awarded the club the Freedom of Newport.
2017–19
Giant Killers
Under Michael Flynn, County pulled off a miraculous final-day escape from relegation, then launched a series of FA Cup runs that stunned the country — beating Leeds, drawing Tottenham, toppling Leicester, and hosting Manchester City in the fifth round for the first time since 1949.