Canterbury City Football Club is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

club based in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

, Kent,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. They are currently members of the and currently play at

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separa ...

's Woodstock Park ground. Affiliated to the Kent County Football Association, the club reformed in 2007 and were the first football club to be formed as a

community interest company A community interest company (CIC, colloquially pronounced "kick") is a type of company introduced by the United Kingdom government in 2005 under the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004, designed for social ente ...

History

The original Canterbury City were formed in 1904,Mike Williams & Tony Williams (2012) ''Non-League Club Directory 2013'', p867 joining the East Kent Thursday League for the 1904–05 season.Club History
Canterbury City F.C. The following season saw them join both the East Kent League and the Faversham & District League, but they folded at the end of the 1906–07 season. In 1910 the club was reformed by P.C. Speed and joined Division Two West of the Kent League.The 'original' Kent League 1894-1922
Non-League Matters However, they withdrew from the league during the season, dropping into the Thanet League before folding after playing their last match on 10 December. The name Canterbury City was resurrected in 1920 when Canterbury Alliance changed their name after being promoted to Division One of the Faversham & District League. However, they folded during the 1921–22 season after being unable to collect entrance fees from spectators as they played on a recreation ground. A new Canterbury City was formed in 1947,Canterbury City Football Club
Canterbury City Council and joined Division One of the Kent League. They remained in the league until it folded in 1959, at which point they joined the

Metropolitan League The Metropolitan League was a football league in the south-east of England between 1949 and 1971.Southern League. In 1964–65 the club reached the first round of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

for the first time, losing 6–0 at home to Fourth Division

Torquay United Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nickna ...

. They reached the first round again in 1968–69, losing 1–0 at Third Division

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground sin ...

. Canterbury remained in Division One until reorganisation saw them placed in Division One South in 1971. Further reorganisation saw them moved to the Southern Division in 1979. At the end of the 1993–94 season Canterbury dropped into Division One of the Kent League, which was renamed the Premier Division in 1998. They finished bottom of the league in 1999–2000 and 2000–01, after which they folded when the council evicted them from their

Kingsmead Stadium Kingsmead Stadium was a greyhound racing and motorcycle speedway track and Association football ground in Canterbury. It was host to Canterbury City F.C. and the Canterbury Crusaders speedway team. The stadium closed in 1999 and was demolishe ...

. The club was reformed in 2007 and joined Division Two East of the

Kent County League The Kent County League is a football competition based in Kent, England. The league has seven senior divisions – a Premier Division, Division One East and West, Division Two East and West and Division Three East and West. It sits below the Sout ...

. They won the division in their first season and were promoted to Division One East. After winning a second successive title the following season, they were promoted to the Premier Division. The 2010–11 season saw them finish as runners-up, earning promotion to the Kent League, which became the Southern Counties East League in 2013. When the league gained a second division in 2016, Canterbury became members of the Premier Division.

Grounds

The original Canterbury City played at Wincheap Grove. A 140-capacity stand and dressing rooms were built in 1904 and were opened on 4 December by the city's mayor. The 1910 version of the club played at Pay's Field (later known as Bretts Corner), whilst the 1920 version played at the Victoria Rec. By 1922, newspapers reported that the club were again playing at Wincheap Grove. The modern version of the club originally played at the

, but were evicted by the council in 2001. In the first seasons after reforming, they initially played in

Bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

, before moving to the Recreation Ground in

Hersden Hersden is a village east of Canterbury in Kent, South East England. It was established as a planned coalmining village in the 1920s and is on the A28 road between Canterbury and the Isle of Thanet. Work in the Kent Coalfield was the main source ...

for the 2009–10 season. After the start of the 2010–11 season the club arranged an ongoing groundshare agreement to play their home matches at Herne Bay's Winch's Field ground. At the beginning of the 2014–15 season City moved to Ashford United's Homelands ground. They played at Deal Town's Charles Sports Ground in 2017–18, before moving to Salters Lane, the home ground of Faversham Town, for the 2018–19 season. After Faversham Town informed Canterbury that they would not wish to continue the arrangement into the 2022–23 season, a groundshare was arranged with

Honours

*Kent League **League Cup winners 1949–50 *Kent County League **Division One East champions 2008–09 **Division Two East champions 2007–08 **Les Leckie Cup winners 2008–09League Cups
Kent County League *Kent Senior Cup **Winners 1953–54 *Kent Senior Trophy **Winners 1979–80 *Frank Norris Trophy **Winners 1988–89, 1989–90 *Kent County Junior Cup **Winners 2007–08

Records

*Best

performance: First round, 1964–65, 1968–69 *Best

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The com ...

performance: Second round, 1974–75 *Best

FA Vase The Football Association Challenge Vase, usually referred to as the FA Vase, is an annual football competition for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English National League System (or equivalently, tier 9 or 10 of the overall English footb ...

performance: Semi-finals, 2018–19

References

External links

Official website
{{Coord, 51, 20, 56.48, N, 0, 45, 43.33, E, type:landmark, display=title Football clubs in England Football clubs in Kent Association football clubs established in 1947 1947 establishments in England Fan-owned football clubs in England F.C. Kent Football League (1894–1959) Metropolitan League Southern Football League clubs Kent County League Southern Counties East Football League