FAREHAM TOWN HISTORY
There has been organised football in Fareham since the 1880’s, but Fareham Town Football Club in its present form was formed in 1946 from an amalgamation of three local clubs.
The new club played initially at Beaconsfield Meadow (now housing) before moving to Bath Lane and progressed from the Portsmouth Senior League to the Hampshire League, reaching the First Division of the latter in 1953.
During our time in the Hampshire League the club won every honour within the County – the League on eight occasions including five consecutive seasons from 1962/3 to 1967/8, the Hampshire Senior Cup was claimed three times and every other County Cup once. A successful Sunday side, the Fareham Centipedes, won the FA Sunday Cup in 1974.
There are newspaper records going back to the very early days where the club applied to the local authority to move to a purpose built sport stadium here at Cams Alders in 1946, but it wasn’t until 1975 that the club moved to Cams, and we joined the Southern League in 1979 gaining promotion to the Premier Division in 1982. In 1989 despite achieving 51 points we were relegated from the Premier Division – still a record for a relegated club.
In 1998 the club for financial reasons, made the, at the time, controversial decision to play at a lower level and joined the Wessex League Premier Division where we have remained to the present day.
The club have reached the FA Cup First Round Proper on four occasions, the last occasion being in 1988 when after holding Torquay United to a 2-2 draw at Plainmoor, we were defeated 3-2 in the replay at Cams.
We have reached the semi-final of the FA Trophy in 1986/87 before losing 2-0 on aggregate to the eventual winners Kidderminster Harriers.
During the run to the semi-final stage Conference Clubs Scarborough and Barnet were both beaten on their own grounds and these two went on to top the Conference table at the end of the season.
The club’s last major honour was a shock defeat of odds-on favourites Farnborough Town to win the Hampshire Senior Cup in 1993.
The club is looking ahead to the future with optimism and excitement and becoming a pivotal pillar of the community in the Borough of Fareham. We have a flourishing youth section with teams aging from 6 through to U18’s and have obtained full FA Charter Standard Status for both our Adult and Youth sections, awards were are immensely proud of.
Previous Players to have moved to play in the Football League:
Kevin Bartlett – Notts County, WBA
Steve Claridge - Leicester City, Millwall, Portsmouth
Darren Foreman – Barnsley, Scarborough
Ray Hiron – Portsmouth
David Leworthy – Tottenham Hotspur, Oxford United
Kevin Maddock – Willem II Tilburg (Netherlands)
Paul Moody – Southampton, Millwall, Fulham Oxford
Domenyk Newman – Reading
Alf Wheeler – Blackburn Rovers
