AFC Croydon Athletic

AFC Croydon Athletic is a non league football club based in South Norwood in South London, who were formed by the supporters of their previous club Croydon Athletic in 2012. The club share the Croydon Arena with Croydon FC, with the aim of trying to move to The Keith Tuckey Stadium in the future.

Croydon Athletic were originally known as Wandsworth & Norwood FC following a merger of Wandsworth FC and Norwood FC in 1986 with Keith Tuckey installed as club Chairman. The club were admitted to the London Spartan League, changing their title to Croydon Athletic in 1990.

In 1994-95 ‘The Rams’ won the league title after finishing as runners up the previous season. However, they were refused promotion as the facilities at the Keith Tuckey Stadium were deemed unsatisfactory. After improvements were made to the ground, Athletic joined the Isthmian League for the 1997-98 campaign.

In 2000-01 Croydon won the Division Three title and were placed in Division One South following league reorganisation. After several mid table finishes the businessman Mazhar Majeed bought the club in 2008 with the promise of investment, with David Le Cluse being appointed as Chairman.

The Rams were crowned Division One South champions in 2009-10 and were promoted to the Premier Division as further improvements were made to the stadium. Majeed was a property developer and agent to the Pakistan cricket team. He was tried over allegations of arranging spot fixing during a Test Match between England and Pakistan.

The club also came under the spotlight as a consequence. Several questions were being asked in the game of where the money was coming from for high profile signings while the attendances at the Keith Tuckey Stadium were so low. 

Majeed admitted in an interview with an undercover journalist that the only reason he owned Croydon Athletic was to enable money laundering.

HMRC became involved with the manager Tim O’Shea, his assistant and several players leaving the club. Worse was to follow as Le Cluse committed suicide as he was so distraught as a friend of Majeed’s for the club to be caught up in the allegations. Majeed was jailed in November 2011.

Athletic were hit with a £7,500 fine and deducted ten points for financial irregularities a month later as their future was in severe doubt without a backer, after already being relegated to Division One South.

The team failed to fulfil a couple of fixtures before the stadium was locked up and most players left. The local paper, The Croydon Advertiser announced that club was no more on December 16th 2011.

Supporters gathered together and announced that they would form AFC Croydon Athletic in time for the 2012-13 season playing in the Combined Counties League. Initially the club couldn't move back to their old stadium and shared The Arena with Croydon FC.

In January 2013 the clubhouse burnt down in an arson attack at The Keith Tuckley Stadium but the new club constructed a new building and came to an agreement with Croydon Council to return to their spiritual home.

After a massive clean up campaign Athletic moved back in to the newly renamed Mayfield Stadium during the 2013-14 season. Once settled into their new home, The Rams ended as runners-up in Division One of the Combined Counties League in the 2014-15 season.

Antony Williams had been manager since the club had reformed, before he departed for Chipstead in May 2016. His replacement Kevin Rayner took the side to seventh place in the 2016-17 season.

The team finished just below halfway in the table for a couple of seasons before finding themselves towards the bottom when the 2019-20 season was abandoned owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a similar story in 2020-21 when play was again halted.

AFC Croydon Athletic FC will compete in the Combined Counties League Premier Division in the 2020-21 season.

My visits

Croydon Athletic Sutton United (August 2000) Pre Season Friendly (att: approx 250)

It was a pleasant summers evening when I finished work for the day at Lord’s Cricket Ground so I decided that a visit to a new ground was in order. I took the tube and train down to Norbury before catching the bus down towards the ground. It wasn’t quite as easy I thought to find the venue, but eventually I was walking up the track at the end of Mayfield Road past a local league pitch and towards the gates.

The Keith Tuckey Stadium was small but tidy. It had a small Main Stand with wooden boards providing the seating. There were two small covers down the far side, with the rest of the ground consisting of open hard sanding with a few steps thrown in for good measure.

The original Main Stand as  scanned from a book

The game was mainly attended by visiting United fans and several neutrals. There were a few Crystal Palace shirts on show. The clubhouse was small but welcoming.

At full time I saved a lot of time as I now knew where I was going. It didn’t take long before I was on the bus to connect with the train back into central London.

Thursday 3rd August 2006

Croydon Athletic was the final ground I visited on a day off work exploring several venues in the south of the capital and Surrey. My previous ground was Tooting & Mitcham United so I caught the tram from Mitcham to Therapia Lane as I thought I would soon find the ground by cutting through Croydon Cemetery. However, this proved to be a lot harder than I thought as the rain fell steadily.

Eventually I caught sight of the floodlights and took an unconventional route though and over fences to arrive at the main gate only to find it closed. However, help was at hand as a groundsman was working inside and he let me in.

The stadium hadn’t really changed, save for the installation of a neat new enlarged Main Stand and a cover behind one of the goals. My ally even came back to give me a programme from the previous home game, which was a lovely touch.

I went on my way happy with my days work, but ready for a good long rest!

AFC Croydon Athletic 2 Beckenham Town 0 (Wednesday 28^th September 2016) Southern Counties East League Premier Division (att: 89)

It was the second week of my settling in period in my new job location at Uxbridge, with my tasks to be familiarised at several new stations. As I got done around 6pm I had my eye on rounding off another good day with a long overdue visit to see how AFC Croydon were getting along?

The train from Victoria took me to Norbury, from where I decided to walk to the ground. Heading down London Road took me no time, but I got lost in the streets off there in the lead up to the ground as I got slightly lost.

I made kick off time after paying my £7 admission along with another couple of quid for a programme. Mayfield Stadium had been restored to its former condition following the couple of years without use. While it was confined, it had everything a venue of that status required, and more.

AFC were top of the table with seven wins from seven before play, while Beckenham; who I’d seen lose 2-1 at Croydon a month earlier, were languishing at the wrong end of the table. Therefore it was no real shock when Warren Mfula put the home side ahead in five minutes after a real howler from the Town keeper.

The visitors actually got back into the game, and it was quite even after the goal. I had my usual walk around the pitch to take in some different angles. At the break I went inside the comfortable clubhouse for a tea.

The second half was much of the same. The Rams played some good football, with Beckenham equalling them on occasions. It was building up into a very interesting last quarter when a couple of the floodlights went out on sixty eight minutes.

Referee Bobby Kwatt had stopped the game when the rest of the lights went, leaving the ground in the dark save for the emergency lighting and the clubhouse. I gave it five minutes and then made an early decision to call it a night. I was aware of several games via the excellent Non League Matters forum where abandonments followed floodlight failures.

It wasn’t easy finding my way along the rough and pot holed laden lane back to Mayfield Road. Eventually I reached some proper roads and caught buses to Streatham and then Brixton at which point I’d found out via Twitter that the teams had returned after a twenty minutes sojourn.

AFC Croydon had doubled their lead as Mfula added to his tally to keep his side top of the table. I was pleased that I’d made the effort, but definitely stored in the memory bank the distance from London Road to the ground. Google Maps can be deceiving!

Tuesday 1st December 2020

Click here to read about a further visit as part of my 100 mile Sawasdee Cup Charity Walk late in 2020 as I called in on all the clubs in the top five tiers within Greater London to raise money for Junior Cricket Development in Thailand.