Article Produced in Conjunction with Ian Johnson

The Most Championship Titles....

Based on the number of Kent League titles, the most successful  team of the Golden Era was Ramsgate with 3 championship successes. In all, the names of eight clubs were engraved on the trophy during those 13 seasons....

The Dominance of the East Coast

Although no one team wholly dominated the competition, one section of the county most certainly did. The map below locates the 24 clubs that, at some stage, took part in the league between 1946 and 1959. By plotting a star for each title win, we quickly see the superiority exerted by East Kent... and particularly the east coast. 

In fact, the trophy travelled west of the Kent coalfield on only three occasions and it never actually made it beyond Sittingbourne.

Perhaps, one of the reasons for this was that the Kent League featured every major football club in the East Kent area. This was not the case further west where some major semi-professional clubs played in higher grade competitions (eg Dartford, Gravesend and Tonbridge in the Southern League) and top amateur outfits opted to compete in powerful and prestigious amateur leagues (eg Bromley in the Athenian and Isthmian, Dulwich Hamlet in the Isthmian and Erith & Belvedere in the Corinthian). 

Overall Club Records

Of course, the number of title wins is just one way of assessing a club's influence. Another involves consistency.

The table below shows the positions achieved by each club during the 13 years of the old Kent League. Championship winners are denoted by a "C". Yellow squares have been used to highlight a finish in the "top 3".

The Most Consistent!

Those yellow squares give some indication as to which were the most influential clubs. Not surprisingly, there are substantial splashes of yellow for the acknowledged "elite" of Kent football. The table below simplifies the situation by listing  the clubs that  finished in the "top 3" most frequently. The result is somewhat surprising...

Folkestone led the way despite being champions on only two occasion. But the real "turn up" concerns one of the second placed teams..... Snowdown Colliery Welfare.   

It is quite remarkable when you consider that Snowdown was a relatively small village located in the wilds of the Kent countryside. On top of that, the allegiance of the Kent coalfield was actually split between Snowdown and another Kent League outfit - Betteshanger Colliery. All this demonstrates the sheer sporting prowess of the mining fraternity and how much can be achieved in close-knit, partisan communities.

Club Playing Records....

A similar picture emerges from a study of the overall playing records of all 24 clubs that competed during the 13 years of the league - see the table below. This is sorted according to the average number of points gained per match (ie the number of points divided by the number of games played.... 

This approach also shows Folkestone to be the most consistently successful club. It also re-emphasises the dominance of that East Kent footballing fratenity.  

The six most consistent clubs lifted the title most frequently. However, there were "one off" successes by two of the less powerful clubs - Ashford (1948/49) and Deal (1953/54). Interestingly, Deal is located on the eastern edge of the Kent coal field and I suspect that they drew some of their players from the mining communities.

The overall assessment places Whitstable in 19th place.... but ahead of local rivals Faversham and Herne Bay.

Town in the FA Cup...

We are currently trying to piece together Whitstable's FA Cup exploits during the Golden Era. However, information is fairly limited in this area and, in any event, it seems that the Reds had very limited success. 

Records located to date are as follows....

Strangely, Whitstable's cup exploits improved as their league position deteriorated. The most successful cup run was achieved in the 1957/58 season and it set up a money spinning tie with one of the county's top clubs - Gravesend & Northfleet from the Southern League. It also established a ground attendance record for the Belmont - see our Attendances page and Ian Johnson's reminiscences on our Memories page. 

Both Ian Johnson and I have tried to track down the results for seasons 1952/3, 1953/4... but without success. It is just possible that the club did not enter the competition during those years.

For the other eleven seasons, Whitstable appear to have had a couple of bogey teams. They were eliminated by either Dover or Ashford on no fewer than NINE occasions!