Saints were immediately accepted into the London League, and in their debut season they finished third in the Second Division behind Kingston and St Albans Centurions.

A second successive appearance in the Gordon Anderton Memorial Trophy Final again ended in defeat (28–32), this time at the hands of a strong Metropolitan Police team.

Despite suffering a number of maulings (including a 2–100 loss at the hands of Crawley Jets), enthusiasm never waned and the club did much to raise the profile of the sport in this corner of the capital.

The club made sporting history in October when the under-11s played their counterparts from Kingston Warriors in the curtain raiser to the England vs Australia Rugby League World Cup clash at Twickenham.

The trio of wins, against Bedford Swifts (22–6), Crewe Wolves (20–16) and Kingston Warriors (46–10) all came in the second half of the season, after an opening sequence of six successive losses including a 6–100 drubbing at the hands of West London.

The regular season saw Storm suffer a succession of frustratingly narrow defeats – most by ten points or less – to finish bottom of the South Division, but it was in the end-of-season Shield Play Offs that saw the team hit form.

Group wins over Kingston Warriors (28–22 and 36–4) and Oxford Cavaliers (21–12 in both games), took South London to Cheltenham’s Prince of Wales Stadium for a semi-final clash with Crewe Wolves.

It was a tough encounter that for long periods looked to be going Wolves’ way, but Storm dug in to prevail 21–14, courtesy of two late tries from Carl Zacharow and Keri Ryan.

Storm ran in ten tries in a runaway 54–2 victory, Caro Wild led the way with a hat-trick, Daniel Poireaudeau grabbed two, and Terry Reader, Keri Ryan, Nathan Price-Saleh, Aaron Russell and Alun Watkins pitched in with one apiece.

The final whistle sparked terrific celebrations both on the pitch and in the stand where Storm's large traveling support cheered Keri Ryan as he lifted the club's first ever major trophy.

Under the South London Storm “umbrella” are the three junior feeder clubs formed – the Croydon Hurricanes, Thornton Heath Tornadoes, and the Brixton Bulls.

Coached by ex-London Broncos player Darryl Pitt, the club opened their league campaign with an against-the-odds 24–16 victory over Huddersfield Underbank Rangers.

In November Storm played a charity match against an Australian Legends of League side including the likes of Jason Hetherington, Trevor Gillmeister, Craig Coleman, Andrew Farrar and Peter Tunks.

That same month Storm played their first ever Rugby League Challenge Cup game when they hosted National Conference side West Bowling in the preliminary round, losing 4–36.

In 2003 Storm were represented at International level for the first time when U15 player Adam Janowski was selected to play for England U15s against their Welsh counterparts at Easter.

The season proved to be a success with the club winning its first round Rugby League Challenge Cup match against West London Sharks (24–20) in front of a crowd of 1,000.

This rounded off a successful season that included the London League title for the second team who defeated Luton Vipers in the Final.