The state of Dartford football club

[Kebabus]

What’s happened to my beloved DFC?

Not that long ago we were the best part time team in England, did the double over Luton, (we did).

Rather than kick on, for what ever reason we went down but still got close to going back up a couple of times, Weymouth being the worst day.

With great facilities and a decent fan base why are we so woeful now?

I can only guess that commercially we are well off the pace, if it’s not that then what is it?

As I sadly write, we have become the butt of jokes and simply hopeless, we are truly in a sad state.

[ozymandias]

Sorry Keb but this all started with the appointment of Dowson and the failure to get rid of him sooner.
Biggest mistake this club has made.

[Sleightly Deceptive]

Wow. Good question. Sadly, the internet isn’t big enough for the responses!

[Bagdhad Billy]

Many things could be sighted as the reason for our demise,

-Not replacing Burman when we got our reprieve in the national? Boys club.
-Not doing anything what so ever to build the fan base when we had an amazing opportunity with our new stadium? Boys club
- sacking our best manager post Burman?
- allowing Dowse to drag our club to new lows?
- dishing out 2 year contracts when 1 year would have been fine?
- pushing the people of Dartford away from supporting their home town club with the “boys club”mentality, nobody I went to school with at Dartford West do I see anymore at games where’s at the beginning many attended.
- effectively banning the youth and yes it was a mistake as they are currently allowed in for free.

The list goes on and on and for me the board have lost touch with what is required to build a club for the future, yes they did an amazing job in saving our club however that doesn’t give them the right to be lazy with its future….

I hear some already talking about our budget make no mistake we are a top 6 side in the NLS however we have through negligence seen the Darts go to new lows and I believe this is because the board think they are untouchable and it’s “their” club..

[Ozytalksbull]

Goes right back to the lack of investment
When we were competing with the likes of Cambridge and Luton etc
The board needs a major shake up

[Ozytalksbull]

Sorry Keb but this all started with the appointment of Dowson and the failure to get rid of him sooner.
Biggest mistake this club has made.

Far from it the biggest mistake was taking fans for granted and not investing a good few seasons ago
The current season is a culmination of poor decisions by the board for the last few years , basically they’ve been winging it

[Hitchin Dart79]

Always felt with a hardcore of 1100ish top half of NLS was about right. You need another 400 paying punters at least to solidify the club and have a base to kick on from. Doesn’t always work as Dulwich hamlet fans would attest to I am sure but that’s a good barometer! Quite frankly how on earth we’ve managed to get relegated from a mediocre (Yeovil aside) NLS this season is truly some achievement and will set the club back about 5 years at least I reckon! Feels very much like the football team is mirroring the town itself in a state of disrepair and down on its luck!!

[rambo]

Yes there was a time when we were in the NP that we were a better team and club than our main rivals
Bromley Maidstone Ebbsfleet welling Chelmsford Dover now all these teams are better than us , even Welling
Add to that teams such as Hornchurch tonbridge and aveley are now better than us
Why has this happened. firstly you must look at the board and I don’t believe for a second that the whole board wanted to sack king and I don’t believe thd whole board wanted to appoint dowson then give him a two year contract
So the board members that were anti king and pro dowson need to take a good long look at themselves
So the reason we went from a play off cert team to a relegation team is 100% down to Dowson and Tyler. I recognised six months into Dowsons reign that we were going down the pan , hos could the board not see this happening
In order to recognise dowsons and Tyler’s contribution to this fine club that I have supported since 1977 I refer to the two gents wc’s at each end of the ground and I strongly suggest they officially are named with appropriate signage
Dowsons Toilet and Tylers Toilet
One last thing the under 18s card scheme should be scrapped and next season by way of apology from the Board under 18s should be allowed in free for the first half of the season
Next season will not be easy as there are some very good teams in the isthmian league if we don’t watch out we could be in that division for a while

[templehillian]

In the highly likely event of us playing in the Isthmian league next season our dismal performances and results against lesser (on paper) teams we have encountered in the various cup competitions in recent years means next season could be as hard and painful as this season has been. We will be seen as the team to beat and every team visiting Princes Park will be upping their game, and in some cases not even having too. Unless the current squad is radically rebuilt , the majority of them are just not good enough, I cannot see us coming straight back up.

[DA Mikey]

Let’s face it, DFC as we are at present are incapable of scoring any goals, so a random fans XI could be picked out to play our first team and a draw would be a disappointing result (for the fans).

[M1 South]

Seeing how hard Jay the Groundsman worked in the middle of the pitch pre match yesterday, we should have given him a shirt & told him to carry on the hard work post 3o’c!!
Showed more work rate & effort there than the 11 who did start that’s for sure!!

[Dave T]

My view, for what it's worth, is that things started to wrong following the sacking of Steve King. I don't know the full extent of the issues that brought this about, but the appointment of Kingy was a brave one by the board and, for me, signalled really ambitious intent. I understand that it was mainly for non football reasons that he went, though it's a shame that the Board weren't able to better "manage the manager" to resolve these concerns.

I felt the appointment of Dowson was reverting back to a "safer" option as he ticked all the boxes in terms of experience and community focus. His first season saw us finish second, then blow up, yet again, in the play-offs. When he first arrived, he frequently mentioned he was inheriting someone else's squad, which l thought was him getting in his excuses early! I always felt that second place was a massive over achievement given his style of play, but of course no-one complained!

It all went badly tits up though during the past close season, where Dowson's shortcomings in player recruitment were immediately evident. The squad looked very imbalanced with several positions over recruited, and several woefully short. In fairness to Dowson, the loss of Bonner and Essam proved to be massive. I thought at the time that they weren't impressed with his management, particularly his awful manner of criticising them publically, when others were clearly more culpable. I regarded this as another snipe that they weren't "his" players.

I felt the board should have acted sooner in sacking Dowson, and the delay in replacing him has regrettably proved fatal, with Ady not having had time to get in decent recruits and make a difference. I have no real issue with Ady's appointment, though I would say that he was another "safe" appointment, rather than going for a younger less experienced manager/coach with new fresher ideas.

One thing l fundamentally disagree with though, is the notion that the lack of budget/ investment is the reason for our decline. I was told by several people that King's budget was one of the best six in the league and that Dowson's was no different, which again highlights Dowson's dreadful recruitment disasters.

Fundamentally therefore, our budget is enough to enable us to be competitive at this level. Our current structure does not allow significant external investment, for good reason given our history. That why we won't have millionaire investors looking to boost their egos by owning football clubs, like Eastbourne Borough example, then buggering off when they lose interest, or their money!

On this basis, l can't see how we could contemplate going full time under the current structure, but we should still be competing at the top of the NLS.

[DA Mikey]

Agree with a good bit of what Dave T says there.
I reckon Steve King was a good ambitious appointment, turning around the mess made by Coyle / Flanagan admirably and steering us from relegation fodder to playoffs. He lost some of the fans and some of the dressing room along the way, but his ruthlessness even when we were going well led to the assembly of a good squad which even Dowson was unable to dismantle for six months.
It’s incredibly easy for me to say this now, but I think the sacking of King was wrong and the timing of Dowson’s sacking was also wrong. We couldn’t have done any worse leaving him at the helm, although we would never know that and the mood around the club was souring quickly. All we can hope now is that this is DFC’s PP era nadir and that next season we mount a strong challenge in the IPL (that’s going to take some getting used to).
Who knows, perhaps we will win 3 or 4 of our last games and survive instead

[Lars Resort]

Bloody hell, I didn't know pig's could fly that high.

[Tall Dart]

Looking back to 2019/2020 season where King turned around previous misfortunes. He was appointed in October, with plenty of time to have a chance. This time around, Ade had only ten games and at the wrong end of the season to recruit.

Seems to me, most fans felt like our 2nd place finish last season was overwhelming over achieved. The board however backed him to the hilt.

No wonder we are in such a mess.

[Mark Sweet]

Pre season we lost Carruthers to Chelmsford because they were willing to pay more. A key creative outlet in the team from last season. OK he might have been asking for silly money, we can let one slide.

However for me the alarm bells started ringing when Tom Bonner signed for Havant. A club legend who retired a few months earlier and said if he came back it would only be with us.

Then Harvey Bradbury goes to Farnborough mid season for 'travel' reasons only to end up at Chatham a few months later

3 key players from last season. The spine of the team all found excuses to get out of the club and play elsewhere. Clearly there is a reason there. 3 is not a coincidence.

We simply didn't replace them. Nobody has come close to Bonners leadership or defensive ability. We've had barely any creativity in the middle of the park this year like Samir provided and we haven't got anyone up front making themselves difficult to play against and finding the goal.

[JCJ]

I also feel our decline started with the sacking of Kingy, for non footballing reasons, I do not know the full reason why but got the feeling he upset alot of people including a few of the supporters but he also got bums on seats played attractive football and has a long list of contacts, and i believe must have been within the budget as we made a lost for the first time for awhile for the year ending June 2023 , I remember someone once saying after Kingy got sacked we got our club back, and we have gone backwards ever since and now head back out of the national league, Kingy's time generated a fantastic atmosphere with crowds heading towards the 1500/2000 mark, surely if he was sacked for non footballing reasons there was another way to handle it.

But we appointed the clown but had a lucky season finishing second, but the writing was on the Wall, with the treatment of Wilkes the best goalkeeper in this league at the time, Then losing Carruthers to Chelmsford Bonner & Connor also going, we acted to late in sacking him and was late in appointing a new manager,
I do think its strange that Dowse wants Bonner to sign for Hemel yet could not persuade him to sign for us and also has signed Pierre Fonkeu a player deemed not good enough by Dowse for us this season, Its as if he was on a mission to destroy our club, Bradbury soon moved on which showed he did not feel anything for the club.

I feel for Ade as he not got be given many games to change things ( even kIngy took a little time to get the players to buy into his style)

[Babylon]

After reading Mark Sweets post the result Is.....
A STRONG , ALMOST CERTAIN CHANCE OF RELEGATION.

What I witnessed on Monday against. Eastbourne was a shambles and a bunch of losers.who imo were beaten before they went on to the pitch.


....

[Sleightly Deceptive]

Well, if we go down, which is a stronger certainty than an Essex nurse, then we’re coming back up bigger and better. Has to be. If you think about it, if it fails and goes further tits up, then the Board’s position is untenable. And I don’t even want to think about that after what they’ve done and achieved.

Next season, we “Do It for Dave!”

DARTFORD FC will be a massive club in the IPL and teams will be shitting themselves at the prospect of coming to a ‘bouncing’ Princes Park (remember those days? )

This summer is key. Are you watching Ady?

[Mark Sweet]

After reading Mark Sweets post the result Is.....
A STRONG , ALMOST CERTAIN CHANCE OF RELEGATION.

What I witnessed on Monday against. Eastbourne was a shambles and a bunch of losers.who imo were beaten before they went on to the pitch.


....

Sorry if I am missing something but what has my post got to do with that?