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Dover Athletic F.C.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dover Athletic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Dover Athletic Football Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | The Whites | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded | 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | The SeaFrance Crabble Stadium, Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover (Capacity 6,500) |
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| Chairman | Jim Parmenter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manager | Andy Hessenthaler | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League | Isthmian League Division One South | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006-07 | Isthmian League Division One South, 3rd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dover Athletic Football Club are an association football team that play in the town of Dover, Kent, England. They currently play in the Isthmian League Division One South.
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The first football club in Dover was formed in 1891, and was known as Dover FC. The club competed in the Kent League before disbanding in 1910.
Reformed as Dover United in 1920, the new club survived for another thirteen years before another winding-up operation saw its rebirth as Dover FC. The club was an amateur club until the end of the 1946/47 season, when they were reformed as a semi-professional club. Dover played in the Kent League until 1959, when the club was admitted to the Southern League. Playing in the First Division, Dover won promotion in 1967, and played in the premiership until they were relegated eleven years later. Despite winning the First Division title the following season, Dover were not promoted.
In 1983 the club was reformed as Dover Athletic, and under manager Chris Kinnear, the club achieved promotion to the Premier Division in 1987/88. They went on to win the Premier Division championship, but were denied promotion to the Conference when their ground was deemed not to be up to standard. Champions once more in 1992/93 they met the ground requirements and were promoted to the Football Conference.
In August 1993, Dover Athletic paid Farnborough Town a then non-league record £50,000 for the services of striker David Leworthy.
A solid debut season (8th) was followed by several years of struggle avoiding relegation, with long serving boss Chris Kinnear, John Ryan, Peter Taylor and Joe O'Sullivan all failing to address the lowly progress. In 1995/96, Dover finished in 20th position (out of 22), but were fortunate that only two football clubs suffered relegation that season. The 1999/00 season saw the club achieve its highest position (6th) under Bill Williams. However, the following season saw Dover struggle against relegation, finishing 15th out of 22. Manager Bill Williams left Dover at the end of the season. The 2001/02 season got off to a terrible start under new manager Gary Bellamy and he was sacked in November. His replacement Neville Southall was unable to save Dover from finishing bottom of the league and relegation into the Southern League. Financial problems were revealed and the club were forced to go into a CVA.
The club failed to earn a position in the newly formed Conference South league for the 2004-05 season, finishing 19th in the Southern League Premier Division, and were then relegated to the Isthmian League Division One after finishing second from bottom in the Premier Division, with financial problems almost causing the club to close down before Jim Parmenter led a consortium of businessmen to save the club.
Dover Athletic narrowly missed out on a swift return to the Premier Division, after finishing fifth in Division One and losing in a play-off final 3-2 at Kent rivals Tonbridge.
In August 2006, it was announced that the club had successfully negotiated an end to their CVA repayments, which had stifled the club's progress for the previous four seasons.
Dover Athletic missed out on promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division for a second consecutive season after losing to Hastings 2-0 in the play-off semi-final after finishing 3rd this time.
On the 29th May 2007, Dover Athletic appointed a new manager as replacement for Clive Walker whose contract was not renewed beyond the 2006/2007 season, after failing to make it past the Ryman League Division One play-offs for a second season. The man put in charge was ex-Gillingham boss Andy Hessenthaler.[1][2]
Hess was recruited on a full-time basis and drafted in former Dover player Darren Hare as his No 2.
On the 1st August 2007 Dover Athletic announced their biggest sponsorship deal in some years, with international ferry operator Seafrance signing a five figure, one year deal. The deal included the renaming of Dover's ground to 'The Seafrance Crabble Stadium'.[3]
- Southern League Premier Division champions 1990, 1993; runners up 1992
- Southern League Southern Division champions 1979, 1988
- Southern League First Division champions 1967
- Kent League champions 1952, 1953
- Dover Athletic Official Website
- Official News by RSS
- DAFCTV - Official Match Videos Online
- DAFCradio Audio on Demand Serivce
- Dover Football Club History Site
- Dover Athletic Supporters Trust
- Dover Athletic FC's Striker Lottery
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Ashford Town (Kent) | Burgess Hill Town | Chatham Town | Chipstead | Corinthian-Casuals | Cray Wanderers | Croydon Athletic | Dover Athletic | Dulwich Hamlet | Eastbourne Town | Horsham YMCA | Kingstonian | Leatherhead | Metropolitan Police | Molesey | Sittingbourne | Tooting and Mitcham United | Walton & Hersham | Walton Casuals | Whitstable Town | Whyteleafe | Worthing |
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