FISHER BOSS Dean Harrison said “the club totally needs investors” after Monday’s 6-2 defeat to Crowborough Athletic left them on the brink of relegation.
Fisher go into their final two games in last place in the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division table.
Fisher Athletic were wound up in 2009, before members of Fisher Supporters’ Trust established AFC Fisher, which is funded mostly with annual subscriptions. The new club initially played at Dulwich Hamlet’s Champion Hill before moving to their new ground St Paul’s in Rotherhithe at the start of this season, and they won their first game there 4-0. But all that optimism has faded as their current reality set in.
Harrison told Kentish Football: “It’s a real disappointment. Look at the set-up here, it’s a fantastic set-up. You’ve got everything that you want in the ground. It’s great for training, the supporters are fantastic. They’ve been behind us all the way and it would just be a real shame [to be relegated].
“But at the end of the day you’ve got to look at the situation that possibly it’s not working how the club’s run because they’re fighting relegation battles every year. “Maybe someone somewhere has got to say someone’s got to put some money into it because everyone else is. Even a month or so ago we knew the clubs around us, at least two or three of them, had pumped money into signing players and we’ve got nothing still.
“The club totally needs investors. I love the fans and it’s great and I understand all the supporter-owned thing but as a board and as the running of the club, I don’t think it’s working without money. “I think everyone knows at this level now you need money whether people like it or not, it’s a fact.
At step-five football there is money being pumped in so if you don’t compete, it’s the same at any level, you’re going to have a problem.” Crowborough were four goals up within 47 minutes, before Luke Haidarovic scored twice. But the away side got two more as Fisher lost their 23rd league game this season.
Fisher are four points behind fourth-last Beckenham Town as they face relegation to the First Division, the tenth tier of English football.