MARGATE FC: A GOOD HISTORY LESSON of ups and downs

There won't be many people wearing this badge wandering around in South Yorkshire today. We were meant to meet, so I am now able to write a really interesting blog about..... 

Some may have no idea where this is, many will have heard of the Kent holiday resort, perched on the Thames Estuary....very much the location for East Londoners looking for a good summer break or staycation as we say in these unprecedented times. 

I engaged the gentleman in conversation, discovered that he had been to Margate and watched a game, but that he was a Yorkshireman. He was happy to have a bit of banter and we moved on...he to a local tea room, me to Tesco car park. Margate was a valuable landing site on the Kent coast, originally known as Mere-gate....a marshy place or gap in some hills, where it would be possible to land/launch a boat.

The town's history is tied closely to the sea and it has a proud maritime tradition. Like its neighbour Ramsgate, it has been a traditional holiday destination for Londoners, drawn to its sandy beaches. 

In the late 18th century, the town was chosen as the place in which was build the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, which was the first of its kind in Britain.

Like Brighton and Southend, Margate was infamous for gang violence between mods and rockers in the 1960s, and mods and skinheads in the 1970s.

The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery occupies a prominent position next to the harbour, and was constructed there with the specific aim of revitalising the town. The Thanet Offshore Wind Project completed in 2010, is visible from the seafront.

Margate Town was founded in 1896, as an amateur club, playing friendly matches on local school grounds. In the years before the First World War the club played in several different amateur leagues, with little success, and played at various grounds in the Margate area, before settling on a pitch at what would later become the Dreamland Amusement Park in 1912. This ground became known as the Hall-by-the-Sea Ground, taking its name from a local dance hall. PHOTO of The Gate 1902-3....good pose by manager in the middle.

After the First World War, Margate joined the Kent League but in 1923 the league suspended the team due to financial irregularities and the club promptly folded. A year later the club reformed, initially under the name Margate Town, and returned to the Kent League, still playing at Dreamland, but soon folded again due to heavy debts. In 1929 the club reformed and moved to its present home at Hartsdown Park, leasing part of the park from the local council for conversion into a football stadium.

Margate FC then joined the Southern Football League in 1933 until 1938 and served as the official nursery side for Arsenal; under this arrangement the London club regularly loaned promising young players to Margate in order for them to gain match experience. Shortly after this, the club had to step back down to the Kent League for financial reasons.and later had a spell in the Kent League after World War II. 

In 1959-60 Margate returned to the Southern League after the Kent League folded, and in 1962-3 won with it promotion to the Premier League. Two years later the club turned full-time professional, but this policy proved financially untenable when the team were relegated back to Division One in 1965-6. Nonetheless, they won promotion at the first attempt and returned to the Premier Division in 1967, remaining there until 2001 when they gained promotion to the Football Conference, the highest level of English Non-League football at the time. 

Their stay at this level saw the team forced to groundshare with other clubs, due to drawn-out and problematic redevelopment work at their Hartsdown Park Stadium and during the three years spent away from their own ground, the club was expelled from the Conference and subsequently relegated to the Isthmian League Premier. So some bad luck there. Lots of ups and downs!

During the 1970s, Margate endured severe financial problems and a series of mediocre league seasons, but took part in two famous FA Cup ties. In 1971, the Gate lost 11–0 to Bournemouth with Ted MacDougall scoring a cup record nine goals. One year later, Margate beat Swansea City and Walton and Hersham to set up a third-round tie against "locals", Tottenham, the UEFA Cup holders.  A record crowd of around 14,500 packed into Hartsdown Park for the match which Margate lost 6–0.

Thanet United badge

In 1981 the club changed its name to Thanet United, a name which was retained until 1989 when the name reverted to Margate. In the final season under the Thanet name, the team achieved its lowest league placing for many years, escaping relegation from the Southern League by just one place.

In 1996, the club's centenary year, the club appointed Chris Kinnear as manager. In 1997-8, he took the team to the first round proper of the FA Cup where they played Fulham in a home tie that drew a crowd of 5,100. Although the Gate took the lead, the Cottagers eventually won 2–1. The following season saw the club finally win promotion to the Southern League Premier Division, albeit only after an appeal was lodged against the league's initial refusal to allow the team promotion due to the club failing to carry out necessary ground improvements in time. The Premier Division championship followed in the 2000-1 season, and with it promotion to the Football Conference.

The 2001-2 season was Gate's first-ever season of Conference football and they finished the season in eighth place. In the 2002-3 season the team began groundsharing at Dover Athlectic, while redevelopment work took place at Hartsdown Park, but various problems stalled the planned redevelopment. On the pitch, Margate enjoyed more success in the FA Cup when, after defeating Leyton Orient in the first round, they were drawn at home to Cardiff City in the second round, but lost 3–0. The following season, despite finishing sixteenth, the Gate were forcibly relegated one division due to the ongoing delays and problems with the redevelopment plans for Hartsdown Park.

Margate spent the 2004-5 season in the Conference South now groundsharing at Ashford Town.  Amid ongoing issues with the redevelopment work, which at one point made it seem very likely the club would fold completely, Margate were again relegated to the Isthmian League Premier.

In 2008-9,the club narrowly avoided being subject to High Court action over unpaid debts to HM Revenue and Customs. The club finished the season in 19th position in the table and was expected to be relegated to Div One South but was reprieved due to other clubs folding. The manager during this crisis was Terry Yorath.

The following season, Margate again finished in the bottom four, but the club again received a reprieve from relegation. Chris Kinnear returned for a second spell to manage the team at the start of the 2011-12 season. He moved to Dover Athletic the following season. As of 2021 the team continue to play in the Isthmian League Premier Division. 

The club's current crest is a simplified version of the coat of arms of the town of Margate, incorporating a lion conjoined to a ship's hull, a reference to the arms of the Cinque Ports and the white horse emblem of Kent. 

Margate's shirts have borne various sponsors' logos including the pop group Bad Manners, whose name appeared on the team's kit as part of a sponsorship deal with their record label in the late 1990s. Lead singer Buster Bloodvessel was running a hotel in Margate at the time and actually joined the football club's board of directors. Another band, The Libertines, sponsored the club for the 2018–19 season, after starting work on a recording studio and hotel in the town.