Whatever Happened to Fisher Athletic?

The rise and fall of the dockland club.

The complicated history of the club, or clubs, called Fisher began back in 1908 when the John Fisher Catholic Society, whose aim was to provide football facilities for under privileged children in the London district of Bermondsey, formed a team.

The club is named after the Catholic martyr, John Fisher who was Bishop of Rochester, chancellor of Cambridge University and principal tutor to Prince Henry, later Henry VIII in early sixteenth century.

The Fish are thus one of the few sports clubs in the world to take their name from a person rather than a place.

The club spent the first 70 years of its existence playing in various local amateur leagues at poorly equipped grounds.

It wasn't until 1982 when the club finally moved into the purpose-built Surrey Docks Stadium when a golden age for the club began.

They had won the London Spartan League in 1977/78, 1980/81 and 81/82 and the new stadium meant they were able to obtain a place in the Southern League South Division in 1982/83.

And, under Dogan Arif and skippered by future manager Dennis Sharp, Fish made it three successive titles, finishing two points clear of second-placed Folkestone, to gain a place in the Southern Premier Division.

And Fisher came mighty close to making it four championships in a row when they finished runners-up to Dartford in their first season at Premier Division level, the Kent side finishing three points clear of the Dockers.

The team built by Arif which was to see them through several more successful seasons was taking shape, with the likes of brothers Bobby, Paul and Ray Shinners, goalkeeper Steve Bowtell and forwards Ossie Bayram and Ronnie Murrock.

Paul Shinners finished as the league's top scorer in the 1983/84 season, alerting Gillingham who signed him in October 1984.

Shinners also holds the Fisher record of most career goals for the club with 205 goals scored.

After finishing third in the Anglo-Italian tournament, the team ended up in eighth spot 1984/85 but did win the Bill Dellow Cup, beating champions Cheltenham Town 6-2 on aggregate over the two legs.

Season 1985/86 saw Fish finish a distant third behind the outstanding Welling United side of that time, who lost only three games in 38 games and finished a massive 23 points clear of runners-up Chelmsford City.

However, in 1985/87, Fisher`s win at Gosport Borough on the final day of the season, thanks to a Chris Lewington goal, eventually won them the Southern Premier title they had threatened to win for the previous few years.

The stadium, now with a capacity of nearly 6,000, allowed Fisher to gain promotion to the Conference, meaning that Dogan Arif, a Turkish-Cyrpriot who moved to England as a child, had progressed from being the club`s reserve manager to winning the London Spartan Senior and Premier Division titles, the Southern South Division title and Southern Premier championship in 10 years.

Add to that, the Kent and London Senior Cups and the Bill Dellow League Cup and it was certainly a trophy-laden period for the club.

They entered the top of the non-League tree with a plethora of players who had been with the club through many of their title and cup wins.

Defender or midfielder who had come through the club`s own ranks, made over 430 appearances before leaving just after the start of the next season, midfielder Ricky Hodgson, formerly with Crawley Town, totalled over 350 games, whilst the likes of defenders Paul Collins, Bert Davis and Ray Shinners – the last of the three brothers to remain at the Surrey Docks, all made well in excess of 200 appearances, as did midfielder Trevor Dark, the former Birmingham City player, and Chris Lewington.

It was the consistency of the squad that played a major part in Fisher`s success.

The club finished lower mid-table in its first two seasons at the top level until
1989/90 started with both concern and hope.

The aftermath of the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of previous owner and manager Dogan Arif had meant a switch in owners.

A consortium called `Winners Worldwide`, led by Paul Woolf, a London solicitor, swept into Salter Road with grand plans of bringing League football to the Docklands.

Woolf showed the intent of the group with the high-profile hiring of former Manchester City, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace manager Malcolm Allison, relieving caretaker manager Steve Bowtell from his duties.

The press reported a twelve-month £30,000 contrast had lured Allison to Salter Road after his sacking by Portuguese side Farense in March 1989.

A large press contingent duly turned up for his close season unveiling which saw him arrive by helicopter onto the pitch. Fisher had certainly hit the national headlines!

However, Allison was clearly not at home in the Conference surroundings.

Whether he had expected to storm the league or whether he was starting to doubt the financial promised made to him to secure targeted players was all conjecture.

The inevitable parting of the ways occurred in November with ‘personal reasons’ cited as the reason for Allison’s departure.

Chairman Paul Woolf confirmed that his exit had not been ‘for footballing reasons or as a result of performances.”

After a brief spell with manging director Keith Wenham looking after team affairs, former Wolves skipper Mike Bailey was placed in charge, although it was a difficult start for him, despite an initial boost with Paul Gorman bagging four in a 7-3 win over Sheppey United in the Kent Senior Cup as a run of league defeats lead into and through the Christmas period.

The New Year arrived with Fisher at the bottom of the league. Wins were few and far between through the winter months and an exit in the second round of the Bob Lord Trophy at Boston United was followed the next week with a first round FA Trophy defeat at Welling United.

At least The Fish could now concentrate on the league and a move to bring in the experienced ex-West Ham United player Geoff Pike failed as Bailey looked to find the players to lift the gloom at Salter Road.

By February Fisher were still stuck at the bottom of the league and relegation was looking a certainty.

A 2-1 victory at Enfield, thanks to Gorman’s double strike, pulled them off the bottom and a four-game undefeated run in March, including a 3-0 win at home to Altrincham, managed by former Manchester United boss Tommy Docherty, gave a slim hope of survival.

But going into April the side were still flirting with relegation and successive home defeats to Runcorn and Sutton United saw those fears grow, but a 2-2 draw at Yeovil Town in mid-April seemed to galvanise the team.

A trio of home games saw comprehensive wins against Wycombe Wanderers, Kettering Town and Barrow followed by a final day 4-1 victory at Merthyr Tydfil to make it four wins out of four saw Fisher climb away from the relegation trap door for a 19th place finish and allow a fourth season in non-League’s top division.

Fisher’s spell in the Conference came to an end in 1990/91 when they finished bottom and dropped back to the Southern Premier Division.

The following season brought a second successive relegation, to the Southern South Division, and a `new` name as Fisher Athletic became simply Fisher FC.

Another change of name, this time to Fisher Athletic London, came in 1996 and they generally in mid-table until the turn of the Millennium.

The 1999/00 season saw the club win the Southern Eastern Division. However, Fisher’s success was short-lived, as after just one season in the Southern Premier Division, they were relegated back into the Eastern Division, where in the following season they finished sixth.

The following two seasons saw mid-table finishes, with former Leyton Orient, Huddersfield Town and Grimsby Town midfielder Wayne Burnett taking over the managerial hot-seat in February 2004.

The club was moved to groundshare with Dulwich Hamlet while planning permission was granted for a new stadium and development at the Surrey Docks Stadium.

A raft of top signings followed, and the club were successful in 2004/05, winning the Southern Division One East title and the London Senior Cup.

However, with the non-League Pyramid being shuffled around at this time, Fisher were promoted to the Isthmian League Premier Division for the 2005/06 season.

Burnett resigned as manager for personal reasons in November 2005, with former Tottenham Hotspur defender Justin Edinburgh taking the reins, Fisher finished third in the Isthmian Premier Division that season, also winning the League Cup and London Senior Cup, and beating Hampton & Richmond Borough 3-0 in the play-off final to win promotion to the new Conference South.

The 2006/07 season saw the club finish in tenth place in the Conference South under Edinburgh, but his talents had been noted and he was whisked away to continue a highly successful managerial career with the likes of Grays Athletic, Rushden & Diamonds, Newport County and Leyton Orient before his untimely death at the age of just 49 in June 2019.

Wayne Burnett returned to the club as manager and assembled a very talented squad.

The Fish, playing an attacking brand of football, ended up finishing fourth, and losing to Hampton & Richmond in the play-offs.

The 2008 close season saw a player exodus, with six of the previous season’s squad moving to Football League clubs - Steve Watts to Leyton Orient, Kieran Murtagh, Andre McCollin and Gavin Tomlin to Yeovil Town, Shaun Batt to Peterborough United and Jeff Goulding to AFC Bournemouth.

The club’s financial difficulties also came to a head, as massive debts were found to be piling up.

The club hadn’t been paying players since November 2008, while a winding-up order for unpaid income tax issued by the High Court was, in March, adjourned for 49 days until April, and then adjourned for a further 21 days to May 2009.

A run of sixteen consecutive league defeats between 19th November and 9th March saw the club eventually relegated on 28th March.

At the High Court on 13th May 2009, Fisher Athletic were wound up.

But following a meeting in Bermondsey later that month, a supporter's trust was formed to take control of all forthcoming club matters, with 42 founding members.

Re-named as Fisher FC and continuing to play at Dulwich Hamlet, but no longer the owners of the Surrey Docks Stadium, the Fish appointed Gary Lisney as manager and finished 13th from 16 in their first season in the Kent League Premier Division, embarking upon a fine run in the London Senior Cup.

Lower mid-table finishes followed as the club came to terms with their new surroundings, and in the summer of 2013, the Board took huge strides in their work to return the club to its spiritual home of Bermondsey.

At its AGM, the club unveiled proposals for a new community football facility at the St Paul’s playing fields site, just across the road from the old Surrey Docks Stadium, working with new SDS freehold owners Fairview Homes on a scheme to redevelop both sites together, and bring Fisher home.

In the summer of 2014, Southwark Council’s Planning Committee unanimously approved plans for the new developments at the sites on Salter Road, bringing a return to Rotherhithe within reach a decade after Fisher Athletic’s former owners uprooted the club to East Dulwich.

As the 2015/16 season ended Fisher played out their final game at Champion Hill, ready to complete the club’s rebirth by moving back to Rotherhithe.

They finished second-from-bottom of the Premier Division in 2016/17 and were relegated to Division One.

However, under manager Dean Harrison, a third-place finish the following season was good enough to earn promotion and an immediate return to the Premier Division for the 2018/19 season, where the side confounded expectation by finishing in third place, having led the division for a large part of the winter.

Harrison resigned in May 2019 and during the close season former Ilford FC manager Allan Fenn was appointed in his place.

But in November 2019, Fenn resigned and was replaced by his assistant Ajay Ashanike, who remains in situ today.