Dover Athletic Football Club are delighted to announce that defender Matty Holness has signed his first contract and will remain at the Megger Community Stadium for the 2024/25 season.

Matty is a product of the Dover Athletic Academy and made his first team debut against Yeovil on the final day of the 23/24 campaign. Matty spent most of the season on loan at Erith & Belvedere FC and was man of the match in our Kent Senior Cup game against Beckenham.

Academy Boss and First Team Assistant Mike Sandmann has said:

Matty has progressed extremely well during his time at the Academy. He is a front foot defender, quick and aggressive and will only continue to improve. I am really looking forward to seeing how he progresses over the coming season

Mike Sandmann

Matty is the second player to put pen to paper at Dover for next season, signing a one year deal.

Manager Jake Leberl has said:

Matty trained brilliantly with us all of last season and really stood out, he has very good attributes with a great mentality and I am looking forward to seeing him develop & progress

Jake Leberl

Dover Athletic Football Club are delighted to announce that forward George Nikaj has agreed terms to remain at the Megger Community Stadium for the 2024/25 season.

George is a product of the Dover Athletic Academy and made his first team debut during the 21/22 season in the National League. George has since made 51 National League South appearances in the last two campaigns and was named Away Player of the Season 23/24.

George is the first player to put pen to paper at Dover for next season, and the first piece of the puzzle for Jake and Mike’s side as they build for the new season.

Jake has said “We are delighted to have retained George, who has signed a one year contract on his 21st birthday. George has had offers from teams in higher divisions but he has chosen to stay loyal to the club and sees it as the best place for his development and to achieve his own ambitions. I look forward to seeing what he can deliver in the upcoming campaign”

We are delighted to announce plans for a new pizza and beer outlet that will open at the Megger Community Stadium next season, and we would like you, the supporters, to decide the name!

The new outlet will be in place of the current Town End Tea Hut, and we anticipate beers being allowed on the terraces (subject to a change in our licensing). We are running a competition for supporters to send us ideas to name the new outlet, with the prize for the winner being a block-of-5 ticket and a free pizza at all of those five games attended.

Please use the form below to submit your suggestion and we look forward to updating you with a name and further progress soon!

Form: https://forms.gle/kspgaGQVnwtwafPy5

Dover Athletic can confirm our retained list following the conclusion of the 2023/24 season:  

The following players have options taken up by the club: 

Archie Hatcher 

Henry Young 

The following players have been offered new contracts & received retained letters under the Bosman Ruling:

George Wilkinson 

Luke Baptiste 

George Nikaj 

Roman Charles-Cook 

The following players are in talks with the club, and we will update supporters throughout the close season as to the outcome of these negotiations: 

John Oyenuga 

Freddie Oliver 

Jacob Mensah 

Jaiden Drakes-Thomas 

Bailey Akehurst 

Nick Dembele 

Matty Holness 

The following player was offered a contract but have rejected to explore options elsewhere:  

Charlie Naylor 

The following players have been invited back for preseason:  

Dontai Stewart

Kai Neil-Gray 

Kai Garrett 

The following loan players have returned to their parent club and we are grateful for the excellent service they gave in their time at DAFC. We also extend our thanks to parent clubs Watford and Reading: 

Scott Holding 

Matthew Rowley 

And finally, the following contracts expire this summer and they have not been offered renewed playing terms: 

Iffy Allen 

We are grateful to all departing players for their contributions this season.

We can confirm that academy player Archie Hatcher is spending the next two weeks on trial with Championship side Blackburn Rovers!

The Dover Academy player made his way into the first team last season, he combines his football development whilst continuing his studies at The Abbey School.

Academy Boss Mike Sandmann has said 

“We would like to wish Archie good luck as he starts his two week trial with Blackburn. It goes to show the strength of our young players that are coming through that professional clubs are taking notice, as a club we are proud to be giving them the opportunity”

Good luck Archie!

Dover Athletic Community Trust in conjunction with Dover Athletic FC are delighted to announce that agreement has been reached with the Dover Citadel for the Trust to exclusively use the multisport artificial surface at the Citadel site for the next three years with an option to extend for a further two years,

The potential to extend the agreement to include the Sports Hall and Gym facilities exists subject to demand.

The all-weather pitch will become the centre of community activities which will extend beyond just football activities in conjunction with our grass pitch facilities.

We will soon make further announcements on pitch availability.

Dover Chairman Jim Parmenter said” I have been talking with David de Min, Graham Martin and Kim de Min for several weeks now, they are extremely enthusiastic about being involved in the community and helping Dover Athletic Community Trust and Megger achieve as much as possible within the community.

They have also become very interested in helping the football Club and I hope that this announcement is the start of a long and beneficial relationship.

I would like to thank David, Graham, Kim and Nigel for their positive approach during our discussions.

David de Min CEO and founder of the Citadel Dover commented.

“It’s a pleasure and an honour to be a proud sponsor of Dover Athletic and to assist with their community projects.

What Jim and Sally have achieved for the Dover Community is inspirational. I knew it was a good match when I walked in with one of my partners Graham Martin, an ex Crystal Palace stalwart and supporter and saw a Crystal Palace shirt signed by Ian Wright ( from the 2015 FA cup match) proudly displayed on the wall!!

I am very excited for the future and how we can collectively make #Destination Dover”

Dover Athletic have announced changes to operational arrangements at the Megger Community Stadium for next season.

Chairman Jim Parmenter said, “We have listened carefully to suggestions and input from supporters as well as reviewing our operation with a view to modernisation.

Our aim is to improve supporter experience by reducing queues and waiting time and with the majority now wishing to use cards for payment making that process easier and quicker.”

All our turnstiles and catering outlets will be fitted with fast card readers and the bars with new card reading tills, the Stadium will become cashless (card only) in the turnstiles although a cash facility will be retained at reception for use by anyone who is genuinely struggling to pay by card for entry. Supporters will also be able to purchase programmes at the turnstile with one simple payment.

The turnstile for season ticket holders will become season tickets only in order to reduce queues there, which I know has caused some concern amongst our season ticket holders this season.

To improve hygiene and reduce queues our catering outlets will be card only as will the club shop and the bar. 

The 50/50 draw will remain a cash payment and initially it will remain possible to purchase a programme using cash .

We sincerely hope that supporters will work with on these initiatives, and we will welcome feedback so that we can further improve matchday experience for our supporters.  

As we have come to the end of the football season, although the results on the pitch may not have been what we all wanted, off the pitch we have been taking the small steps towards making Dover Athletic a more inclusive community club.

From quiz nights to raffles, community days to sponsoring books, launching a provision for girls’ football to matchday visits from local grassroots teams, creating a sensory room to hosting the Dover School Games Year 1 & 2 football tournament, donating various raffle prizes to other local causes and charities to craft fairs, attending community days to walking football and plenty more.

None of these things could have been achieved without the generous support from our club sponsor Megger, along with the amazing support from the fans and volunteers involved with each and every one of these activities.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for getting behind the Community Trust and the projects we are trying to make a success and I look forward to continuing building our community links with you all through the close season and into next season.

Vikki

As we close another season I want to thank all the supporters for your support for myself and the Academy once again throughout the season.

Looking back at this season it’s been pleasing to see another 3x Academy players progress into the first team.

Henry Young has established himself as a first team player this season still only aged 18 making 30 appearances scoring 1 goal. Youngy is a great lad who will only continue to improve this seasons experiences will be invaluable for his development.

Archie Hatcher has also come into the first team making 18 appearances across the season scoring 3 goals. Archie again will only continue to improve and we look forward to seeing him continue to develop with us.

Matty Holness has also come into the first team, making his debut against Yeovil and been gaining experience on a dual registration with Erith and Belvedere and supporters will get the opportunity to see him in action next season.

Once again this is fantastic to see these players come through and what our Academy is all about. We look forward to starting again next season and hopefully continue to develop and progress players into the first team.

Enjoy your summer!

Mike

We look forward to welcoming you tomorrow for our final National League South game of the season, and ours in the competition.

I don’t think you can call it a relief. It’s done and dusted, but it’s never a relief to be relegated. You certainly don’t prepare for it, it’s certainly not what any of us wanted.

It’s certainly not what you, the supporters deserve, the way you have been with us all season.

We’ve got to dust ourselves down, we’ve got to regroup and make sure that we get a stronger group together that can give us an opportunity to bounce back straight away.

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome my Yeovil counterpart, Mark Cooper, his staff, his players, the directors, and of course, their fans, to Kent and congratulate them all on their promotion as NLS champions.

Although the season has come to an end, we all know that there is still a lot of hard work to be done. We have been here before as a club and rebuilt – we all want a positive environment, so let’s all work together to achieve it.

Finally – and this is definitely a case of last but not least – I would like to take this opportunity to thank our fans for the support that you have given us this season.

It would be fair to say that you could have asked for more from us and also that we will be asking more of ourselves going forward, but we could not have asked for more from you.

Home and away and in good times and bad, your backing has been incredible and I could not be more grateful.

Hopefully we can enjoy tomorrow together and start thinking about a brighter future.

Jake