The history of the club can be traced back to 1871, but the club in its current format was founded (reformed) on Monday 18 October 1880 as Dorchester Football Club, playing home games at The Recreation Ground on Weymouth Avenue. Dorchester were
Dorset Senior Cup finalists in 1888 and 1890, before joining the
Dorset League in 1896. The club struggled for many years due to the importance of the town's market impacting player availability on Saturdays and, in 1908/09, the club imposed a policy of only playing fellow clubs from Dorchester and visiting military teams. This policy lasted for one season, and on 26 August 1910, Dorchester FC, Dorchester Wanderers, Dorchester United, Dorchester Athletic, and Dorchester Rovers came together to create "a team worthy of the good old town of Dorchester". The newly merged team became known as Dorchester Town Football Club. In 1929 the club moved from the Recreation Ground but remained on Weymouth Avenue, on land which became known as the Avenue Football Ground. Despite being founder members of the Dorset League, the club had little success before winning the championship in 1937/38 with a 2–0 victory at Sherborne on 25 April 1938. The club joined the
Western League in 1947, winning promotion from Division Two in 1950, and going on to take the league championship in
1954/55. The fifties proved to be a successful decade for the Magpies, winning the Dorset Senior Cup for the first time in 1951, and having a number of good runs in the FA Cup, facing the likes of
Norwich City,
Queens Park Rangers,
Port Vale, and
Plymouth Argyle. In 1954, Dorchester reached the 2nd Round before eventually losing out to
York City in front of 5,500 fans at the Avenue ground. York went on to reach the semi-finals. Following four more victories in the Dorset Senior Cup, the club entered the Southern League (Division One South) in 1972. They first tasted success in this division when they finished runners-up to Margate in
1977/78, going unbeaten in the final 16 matches of the season, with manager
David Best utilizing his links with his old club
AFC Bournemouth to attract former first-teamers such as
John O'Rourke,
Jack Howarth, and
Harry Redknapp to the Avenue. The formation of the Alliance League (now the
National League) unfortunately meant the Magpies returned to the reformed Southern Division a year later, but the club celebrated its centenary by winning the Southern Division in
1979/80 by a one-point margin over Aylesbury. Stuart Bell succeeded David Best as manager during the season, and the Magpies went unbeaten in the last 14 games to clinch the title. A young
Trevor Senior impressed alongside ever-present top scorer Paul Thorne, whilst
Graham Roberts joined neighbours
Weymouth early in the campaign for £6,000 before going on to star for
Tottenham Hotspur and
England. Senior stayed with Dorchester for a further two seasons, before signing for
Portsmouth during the 1981/82 season for £35,000, going on to play for
Watford,
Middlesbrough and
Reading, where he broke the Berkshire club's all-time goalscoring record. Before leaving the Magpies, Senior helped the club reach the 2nd Round of the FA Cup again before losing out to AFC Bournemouth in a replay at Dean Court in front of a crowd of 8,700. A goal four minutes from the end of extra time was enough to end Dorchester's dreams of a place in the third round – a feat they have still yet to achieve. Relegated at the end of the
1983/84 season following a severe financial crisis, the club only just avoided dropping out of the league altogether the following year. However, a remarkable turnaround followed and Dorchester returned to the Premier Division as champions at the end of the
1986/87 season, taking the title following a goalless draw at runners-up Ashford on the final day of the season. Having come so close to losing the club in the late eighties, Chairman Peter Aiken and the board realised that the Avenue Ground had begun to outlive its purpose and brokered a deal with
Tesco and the landowners, the Duchy of Cornwall, to develop a new stadium for the club. Again positioned on Weymouth Avenue, Dorchester moved into the newly constructed Avenue Stadium in 1990 and opened their first league campaign at the stadium with a 3-2 victory over
Worcester City, despite having goalkeeper Jeremy Judd sent off early on and having right-back Peter Morrell playing in goal for much of the game. The move saw Dorchester establish themselves as a Southern Premier team in the early nineties before
Stuart Morgan was introduced as manager in 1993. Morgan took the club to sixth in the league in
1994/95, guided Dorchester to the last 16 of the FA Trophy for only the second time in 1996/97, and followed that with a fourth-placed finish in the league in
1997/98. In the following seasons, the Magpies were unable to rekindle the same form and, following a number of close shaves at the wrong end of the table, the club was relegated to the Eastern Division at the end of the
2000/01 season, despite a strong FA Cup run culminating in a 3–1 First Round defeat at Wigan Athletic's 25,000 all-seater JJB Stadium. Under the guidance of manager
Mark Morris, Dorchester's young squad regained their Premier Division status within two years, defeating King's Lynn on the final day of the
2002/03 season to take the Eastern Division title ahead of Eastbourne Borough, having won 16 of their last 17 matches and scoring 114 goals in their 42 league games. A season earlier the Magpies had picked up the
Southern League Cup for the first time, again defeating
King's Lynn in a 4–0 aggregate victory in the final. The first season back in the Premier Division was a difficult one but the club reached the end-of-season play-offs, where two fine victories over Bath City and Tiverton Town saw Dorchester become a Conference club for the first time in the newly formed
Conference South division. A season later the Magpies almost saw further play-off glory, but missed out on another promotion opportunity on the final day of the season, going down 7–3 at
Bognor Regis Town. A mid-table finish the following year ended with the resignation of Mark Morris, with Mick Jenkins taking charge of the first team. Despite the club's tenth success in the Dorset Senior Cup, Jenkins' reign was short-lived, and the club subsequently went through a handful of managers as they had a number of seasons battling relegation. In 2012, former Dorchester player and Reserve Team Manager Phil Simkin took charge of the team, guiding the Magpies in the 2012/13 season to their greatest FA Cup giant-killing as they beat
League Two side Plymouth Argyle 1-0 in the 1st Round to set up a 2nd Round tie for the third time in the club's history. On this occasion
Luton Town were their opponents, with the Magpies falling to a narrow 2-1 defeat. Simkin would lead Dorchester to an eighth place finish in Conference South the following season, before financial difficulties hit the club and they were subsequently relegated back to the Southern League in 2014. In 2015 the club became a Community Benefit Society, allowing fans to become part-owners of the club with no individual able to purchase more than one share. The move was to allow Dorchester to become financially sustainable, centred in the community and run by a collective of fans as opposed to one invididual having sole or majority ownership. On the pitch, a number of managers - including club record appearance holder
Mark Jermyn - came and went as the Magpies would regularly battle relegation from the Southern League Premier. This run would change when former player Glenn Howes returned to the club as manager in October 2021. Two years later Howes invited Tom Killick - an Avenue cult hero in his playing days - to take over as first team manager with Howes as his number two. The pair led Dorchester to a ninth place finish in the
2023/24 season, before reaching the play-offs the following year. The Magpies would lose out to eventual winners
AFC Totton in the semi-finals, falling 4-3 to a last-minute goal in extra-time. Howes departed that summer and with a number of players also moving on, the Magpies failed to reach the same heights in the
2025/26 season. Killick stepped down in February 2026, with player-coach
Wes Fogden taking control as Interim First Team Manager. Despite an initial up-turn in form, Dorchester were unable to save their season and were relegated to Division One South on 18 April 2026 following a 0-0 draw with
Hungerford Town. On 1 May 2026, Glenn Howes returned to Dorchester as first team manager. ==Community Ownership==