Dorchester Town

The history of the club can be traced back to 1871, but the club in its current format was founded (reformed) on Monday 18 October 1880 as Dorchester Football Club, playing home games at The Recreation Ground on Weymouth Avenue. Dorchester were Dorset Senior Cup finalists in 1888 and 1890, before joining the Dorset League in 1896. The club struggled for many years due to the importance of the town's market impacting player availability on Saturdays and, in 1908/09, the club imposed a policy of only playing fellow clubs from Dorchester and visiting military teams. This policy lasted for one season, and on 26 August 1910, Dorchester FC, Dorchester Wanderers, Dorchester United, Dorchester Athletic, and Dorchester Rovers came together to create "a team worthy of the good old town of Dorchester". The newly merged team became known as Dorchester Town Football Club.

In 1929 the club moved from the Recreation Ground but remained on Weymouth Avenue, on land which became known as the Avenue Football Ground.

Despite being founder members of the Dorset League, the club had little success before winning the championship in 1937/38 with a 2–0 victory at Sherborne on 25 April 1938. The club joined the Western League in 1947, winning promotion from Division Two in 1950, and going on to take the league championship in 1954/55. The fifties proved to be a successful decade for the Magpies, winning the Dorset Senior Cup for the first time in 1951, and having a number of good runs in the FA Cup, facing the likes of Norwich City, Queens Park Rangers, Port Vale, and Plymouth Argyle. In 1954, Dorchester reached the 2nd Round before eventually losing out to York City in front of 5,500 fans at the Avenue ground. York went on to reach the semi-finals.

Following four more victories in the Dorset Senior Cup, the club entered the Southern League (Division One South) in 1972. They first tasted success in this division when they finished runners-up to Margate in 1977/78, going unbeaten in the final 16 matches of the season, with manager David Best utilizing his links with his old club AFC Bournemouth to attract former first-teamers such as John O'Rourke, Jack Howarth, and Harry Redknapp to the Avenue.

The formation of the Alliance League (now the National League) unfortunately meant the Magpies returned to the reformed Southern Division a year later, but the club celebrated its centenary by winning the Southern Division in 1979/80 by a one-point margin over Aylesbury. Stuart Bell succeeded David Best as manager during the season, and the Magpies went unbeaten in the last 14 games to clinch the title. A young Trevor Senior impressed alongside ever-present top scorer Paul Thorne, whilst Graham Roberts joined neighbours Weymouth early in the campaign for £6,000 before going on to star for Tottenham Hotspur and England.

Senior stayed with Dorchester for a further two seasons, before signing for Portsmouth during the 1981/82 season for £35,000, going on to play for Watford, Middlesbrough and Reading, where he broke the Berkshire club's all-time goalscoring record. Before leaving the Magpies, Senior helped the club reach the 2nd Round of the FA Cup again before losing out to AFC Bournemouth in a replay at Dean Court in front of a crowd of 8,700. A goal four minutes from the end of extra time was enough to end Dorchester's dreams of a place in the third round – a feat they have still yet to achieve.

Relegated at the end of the 1983/84 season following a severe financial crisis, the club only just avoided dropping out of the league altogether the following year. However, a remarkable turnaround followed and Dorchester returned to the Premier Division as champions at the end of the 1986/87 season, taking the title following a goalless draw at runners-up Ashford on the final day of the season.

Having come so close to losing the club in the late eighties, Chairman Peter Aiken and the board realised that the Avenue Ground had begun to outlive its purpose and brokered a deal with Tesco and the landowners, the Duchy of Cornwall, to develop a new stadium for the club. Again positioned on Weymouth Avenue, Dorchester moved into the newly constructed Avenue Stadium in 1990 and opened their first league campaign at the stadium with a 3-2 victory over Worcester City, despite having goalkeeper Jeremy Judd sent off early on and having right-back Peter Morrell playing in goal for much of the game.

The move saw Dorchester establish themselves as a Southern Premier team in the early nineties before Stuart Morgan was introduced as manager in 1993. Morgan took the club to sixth in the league in 1994/95, guided Dorchester to the last 16 of the FA Trophy for only the second time in 1996/97, and followed that with a fourth-placed finish in the league in 1997/98.

In the following seasons, the Magpies were unable to rekindle the same form and, following a number of close shaves at the wrong end of the table, the club was relegated to the Eastern Division at the end of the 2000/01 season, despite a strong FA Cup run culminating in a 3–1 First Round defeat at Wigan Athletic's 25,000 all-seater JJB Stadium.

Under the guidance of manager Mark Morris, Dorchester's young squad regained their Premier Division status within two years, defeating King's Lynn on the final day of the 2002/03 season to take the Eastern Division title ahead of Eastbourne Borough, having won 16 of their last 17 matches and scoring 114 goals in their 42 league games. A season earlier the Magpies had picked up the Southern League Cup for the first time, again defeating King's Lynn in a 4–0 aggregate victory in the final.

The first season back in the Premier Division was a difficult one but the club reached the end-of-season play-offs, where two fine victories over Bath City and Tiverton Town saw Dorchester become a Conference club for the first time in the newly formed Conference South division. A season later the Magpies almost saw further play-off glory, but missed out on another promotion opportunity on the final day of the season, going down 7–3 at Bognor Regis Town.