They won the South-West Combination in the 2001–02 season, winning promotion to the FA Women's Premier League Southern Division.
[2] Promotion meant they would now play in the top flight of English women's football, where they would join local rivals Bristol Rovers in the National Division.
City found life at the top of the women's game difficult, and their stay in the National Division lasted for just a single season.
In a strange twist City took over, and renamed, FA WSL side Bristol Academy.
Although they had been renamed in the meantime, academy were the same team that had been City's fierce rivals of the late 90s and early 2000s: Bristol Rovers.