History

Football was first believed to have been played in Sturminster Newton in 1871/1872 playing under the name of the “Panthers”.

In 1873 they entered the FA Cup and recorded their best victory in the competition, beating Wood Grange 3-0.

In 1875 they entered the FA Cup again and lost in the second round, losing 9-0 to the Wanderers, who eventually went on to win the cup.

In the 1890’s the influence of the church took over and the club name was then changed to Sturminster St Mary’s.

That name stayed until 1945, when at a meeting held in the Swan assembly rooms it was decided to change the name to Sturminster Newton United.

In 1957 we were one of the founder members of the Dorset Combination League. However due to financial problems we had to withdraw fro the combination league in 1960. Over the next decade we played in the Dorset League and one are main highlights of those years was getting to the final of the Dorset Senior Amateur Cup in the 1961/1962 season losing to Swanage after a replay (played at Wareham).

In the 1970, 1980’s the club really took off. A new venture in those days was to enter tournaments on the continent. Playing a total of 14 matches against teams form Holland, Belgium, France and Germany, we remained unbeaten.

1972 saw a return to the combination league, after winning the Dorset League Division one. We were to wait nearly a decade for further success; this emerged by winning the combination cup in 1981 beating Wareham.

In 1986 we reached the semi finals if the Dorset senior cup, where we were drawn at home to Weymouth from the then Gola league, but unfortunately we lost 0-2.

In 1995 we won the combination cup for the second time, defeating Sherborne 2-1 at Weymouth Football Club.

1996 was another memorable year as we made an historic move form the recreation ground to our own ground at Honeymead Lane.