History

Before 1883

There were Andover football clubs before the one that lasted. A club met and played among its members in 1864 and took on a side from the Acre Ironworks that December. Another played Romsey in 1868 to a goalless draw in the wet, with no referee and some argument about the rules. A third, formed in 1878, lost its first match 1–0 to Basingstoke under rules closer to rugby, and was gone by 1880, to the open scorn of the Andover Chronicle's editor.

Andover FC, 1883 to 2011

Andover Football Club was formed on 25 September 1883 at a meeting in the White Hart Hotel, chaired by the mayor, J Moore, on a proposal from the grammar school headmaster, the Revd J C Witton, who went on to referee for the new club. Some of those present had wanted a rugby side; eleven players were judged easier to find in a town of Andover's size than fifteen. Members paid five shillings a season. The first match, on 27 October 1883, was a 0–0 draw with Basingstoke Engineers on Stride's Meadow behind Swiss Cottage on the Weyhill Road.

The club moved to the Walled Meadow on London Road in 1886 and absorbed its rival Andover Red Star in 1892. It tried several leagues in its first decades, finishing bottom of the Southern League in 1898–99, and recorded its biggest win, 17–1 against Guilder Rovers, on the way to an unbeaten Salisbury League title in 1894–95. In 1907–08 the club won three leagues in one season, the Hampshire, the Salisbury and the North Hants May League, and marked it with a postcard.

The club's best-remembered season at the Walled Meadow was 1947/48, when it won the Hampshire Senior Cup at The Dell and then the Hampshire League Division One title in front of a crowd of around 2,500. Andover later moved up to the Western League, and in its one appearance in the first round proper of the FA Cup lost 1–0 to Gillingham. The club left the Walled Meadow for the new Portway Stadium in 1989 and played there until it folded in 2011, entering administration the following year.

How Town began

A couple of months after Andover FC went into administration, staff at Sparsholt and Andover Colleges began working on a plan to take over Portway Stadium, use it to teach their football academy programme, and put a senior side on the pitch that academy players could grow into. Test Valley Borough Council backed it. The Football Association at first refused to admit the new club to the Wessex League, and it took a long meeting at Wembley in May 2013 before Andover Town Football Club was allowed to exist. Neil Benson was appointed manager and Stuart Barlow and Lawrence Blair got the stadium ready.

The Wessex League years, 2013 to 2024

The first season was the best. Town finished second in Wessex League Division One and were promoted, won the Salisbury Hospitals Cup, scored 108 goals in 30 league games with Michael Dixon getting 34 of them, and lost the Andover Open Cup final on penalties. That same season, in the Hampshire Senior Cup at Brockenhurst, Town scored 29 consecutive penalties in a shootout and still lost 15–14, an English record that stands.

Four seasons in the Wessex Premier Division followed, with a fourth-place finish in 2016 and a run to the second round of the FA Vase in 2017. In 2017/18 Town went sixteen league games unbeaten from the start, won the Russell Cotes Cup, set club records for goals and points, and finished runners-up. Portway groundsman Chris White was named FA National Groundsman of the Year for Steps 5 and 6. The board declined promotion to the Southern League, and the FA moved the Club down to Wessex Division One in response.

Ron Bertie took over as manager in 2018 and rebuilt the side from the Sparsholt academy. Two seasons were cut short by the pandemic and declared void. In 2021/22 a fifteen-game unbeaten run took Town to second, and they finished sixth, the highest finish under Ron Bertie, and Josh Bertie passed Michael Dixon's scoring record. In 2024 captain Owen Trapnell passed 200 appearances for the Club, and the same season Town were relegated from the Wessex League for the first time.

Hampshire Premier League and new ownership, 2024 onward

Town joined the Hampshire Premier League Senior Division in 2024, the year the Club also formed a women's team, which won its league and the Hampshire Junior Cup at the first attempt. A second relegation followed in 2026, softened by winning the George Mason Memorial Shield against BTC Southampton. That summer Sparsholt College withdrew, Mohammed Al Kandari took over as Owner and Chief Executive, and Proleague Limited took a 25-year lease on Portway from Test Valley Borough Council. Under 18 and Under 23 sides were added. Ron Bertie left in September 2026 after nine matches and Robbie Skeates was appointed manager.

The heritage line the Club carries, EST. 1883, marks the town's football, not the Club's own founding.