Fisher Athletic F.C.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Fisher Athletic
Conference South
, 22nd

Fisher Athletic F.C. were a semi-professional

Kent League
for the 2009–10 season.

History

The club was founded in 1908 by Michael Culiton, headmaster at Dockland School, to provide sporting facilities for underprivileged youths of

Dulwich Hamlet
were often considered the team's closest rivals, despite the former groundshare.

The team competed in various district leagues before moving in 1961 to the Parthenon League where they stayed until the end of the 1965–66 season. At this point the club folded and reformed, this time based in Mitcham, joining the Western Section of the Kent Amateur League for the 1967–68 season.

Fisher were elected to the Spartan League in 1975 and won back-to-back championships in 1980–81 and 1981–82. The latter season coincided with a move to their present home, the purpose-built stadium at Surrey Docks.

Fisher were elected to the

Southern League Premier Division. 1984–85 saw Fisher reach the first round of the FA Cup, losing 1–0 to Bristol City
.

In

Football Conference. The following year brought another run to the first round of the FA Cup where the 'Fish' again lost 1–0, their nemesis this time being Bristol Rovers
.

Fisher's success came to an end in

Southern League Premier Division. The following season
brought a second successive relegation, to the Southern League Southern Division, where they remained until the turn of the millennium, generally finishing in mid-table.

Final seasons

The

Eastern Division
, where in the following season they finished 6th.

The following two season saw mid-table finishes, with

Southern League Division One East title and the London Senior Cup. The 'Fish' were promoted to the Isthmian League Premier Division for the 2005–06
season.

Wayne Burnett resigned as manager for personal reasons on 21 November 2005. Under

Conference South
.

The 2006–07 season saw the club finish in 10th place in the Conference South under Edinburgh. Wayne Burnett returned to the club in the summer of 2007, and assembled a supremely talented squad. The Fish played superb attacking football in 2007–08, but ended up finishing 4th, and losing to Hampton & Richmond Borough in the play-offs, the side they had beaten to win promotion two years before.

The summer of 2008 saw a player exodus, with six of the previous season's squad moving to

Football League clubs. The club's financial difficulties came to a head in the 2008–09 season, as massive debts were found to be piling up. The club stopped paying players in November 2008, then a winding-up order for unpaid income tax issued by the High Court was, on 13 March 2009, adjourned for 49 days until 22 April, and then adjourned for a further 21 days to 13 May 2009.[2]

On 18 February 2009, the club claimed to have made history when turnstile operator Donna Powell became one of the first females to manage a male football club in Britain, having raised £250 for the ailing club, although she was unable to prevent Fisher losing 2–1 to Eastleigh.[3] However, she was not actually a manager in the true sense of the term, just a publicity stunt, as Dave Mehmet was never actually relieved of the position. Droylsden had become the first British men's football club to play matches under a female manager following a disagreement between manager Dave Pace and the Manchester F.A. in 2000.[4] This result came during a run of sixteen consecutive league defeats between 19 November and 9 March,[5] which saw the club eventually relegated on 28 March.[6]

Fisher reformed

Following a meeting in

Kent League
.

Stadium

The club's traditional home was the 5,300-capacity Surrey Docks Stadium in Rotherhithe, in the London Borough of Southwark, but after 2004 home games were played at the ground of Dulwich Hamlet while the Surrey Docks Stadium awaited redevelopment.

The Surrey Docks Stadium was located in the heart of South London's

Football League standards by the start of the 2009–10 season. In November 2007 the club announced that it would prefer to move to a new 10,000-seat stadium on the site of the athletics track in Southwark Park,[8] but that the rebuilding of Surrey Docks Stadium remained a possibility.[9]

The pitch in Surrey Docks was protected as Metropolitan Open Land and later became Mayflower Park.[10] The adjacent buildings were damaged in a fire, and were demolished with new housing then being built on a short new road Fisher Close.[11]

Fisher F.C.'s new ground at the St Paul's Sports Ground is about 200 metres away and across Salter Road from the site of Surrey Docks Stadium.

Honours

References

  1. ^ "End of line for non-league Fisher". BBC News. 13 May 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2009.
  2. ^ [1] Archived 3 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Fisher place faith in manageress BBC News Sport, 17 February 2009
  4. ^ Donna Powell may not be the first female manager but she gave Fisher hope (Daily Telegraph blog) accessed 28 July 2010
  5. ^ "Conference South". Confsouth.co.uk. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2009.
  6. ^ Conference South Table, 31 March 2009 BBC Sport, 31 March 2009
  7. ^ "History". FisherFC.com. Fisher FC. Archived from the original on 29 November 2011. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  8. ^ Stadium Proposal Announced Fisher Athletic, 16 November 2007
  9. ^ Olympic Dream – A £35 Million Stadium, Southwark News, 15 November 2007.
  10. ^ Southwark Council name old Fisher ground Mayflower Park, Southwark News, 3 November 2016
  11. ^ Fisher Close, Southwark Council

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fisher_Athletic_F.C.&oldid=1206838956"