page_title: Kingstonian F.C.
section_title: Stadiums
hierarchical_section_title: Kingstonian F.C. / Stadiums
caption_attribution_description: English: The Kingstonian F.C. home ground, Kingsmeadow
context_page_description: Kingstonian Football Club is an English semi-professional football club based in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames which currently plays in the Isthmian League Premier Division. The club groundshares with Corinthian-Casuals at King Georges Field as of July 2018, and this is to become their permanent home back in the Borough. They played the 2017–18 season at Fetcham Grove in Leatherhead having moved out of Kingsmeadow at the end of the 2016–17 season which had been their home since 1989, when they left their original Richmond Road ground. They shared Kingsmeadow with AFC Wimbledon since 2002, who purchased the lease of Kingsmeadow in 2003. The ground was purchased by Chelsea F.C. in 2016, who stipulated that Kingstonian could not remain there.
  Kingstonian Football Club was founded in 1885 by YMCA, named Kingston & Surbiton YMCA, and began competing properly in 1893 in the Surrey Junior Cup. There was a split before the start of the 1908–1909 season which damaged the club, the two clubs were named Old Kingstonians and Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. After period of quiet during World War I, the two clubs re-united and joined the Athenian League in 1919, named Kingstonian.
context_section_description: The early precursors to Kingstonian F.C. played home matches at various locations around the town including Oil Mill Lane (now Villiers Road) and the Fairfield, near Kingston town centre. In 1891 they participated in a tournament at the rugby club ground in Richmond Road, later to become their home.
  In 1898 the club moved to their first private enclosed ground at Dinton Road, next to Kingston Barracks, moving again at the turn of the century to Lower Marsh Lane in 1902, specifically to part of the rugby ground in Richmond Road. The split in 1908–09 between Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. and Old Kingstonians led to the breakaway group Old Kingstonians playing at Norbiton Sports Ground, Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. remaining at Richmond Road. Reunited after World War I, the club continued to play at Richmond Road but, in 1920, the site's owners, the Dysarts, leased the site to Leyland Motors, then establishing a factory base at nearby Ham. The club managed to negotiate a ground-sharing arrangement and were eventually able to buy the land, but the issue impacted their performance.
  Kingstonian F.C. remained at Richmond Road for most of the 20th Century, it thus being referred to as the club's 'traditional home'. The club's record home attendance of 8,960 was attained there in 1955 in a match against Bishop Auckland F.C. The maintenance of the site increasingly became more than the club's income could support and parts of the site were sold off for redevelopment; the 'Kingstonian petrol station' occupying much of the Richmond Road frontage since 1956, and the former running track and reserve pitch redeveloped for housing in the 1970s. The club eventually sold the site and moved out of Richmond Road in 1988. The stadium was demolished after 1989 and the remainder of the site redeveloped for housing.
   
  After a season and a half ground-sharing at Hampton F.C.'s Beveree ground, Kingstonian opened their new Kingsmeadow Stadium (on the site of the old Norbiton Sports Ground owned by Kingston Council) in August 1989. After Kingstonian entered administration to avoid bankruptcy and lost the Kingsmeadow lease in October 2001. It was assigned in April 2002 by the administrators to a property developer, Rajesh Khosla, who was also by then owner of the club. AFC Wimbledon were already sub-tenants at Kingsmeadow, before raising £2.4 million to buy the lease from Khosla in June 2003, with a view to making Kingsmeadow their home. Kingstonian secured a 25-year sub-tenancy agreement with AFC Wimbledon, with customary break clauses. The clubs operated a ground-sharing arrangement, with Kingstonian receiving preferentially cheap rental terms. In 2015, AFC Wimbledon agreed plans to sell Kingsmeadow to Chelsea to help finance their plans to move to a new stadium in Merton. Chelsea have stated that they wish to use Kingsmeadow for their own youth and women's teams and are not willing to accommodate Kingstonian. On 22 February 2017, Kingstonian announced that they will be sharing Leatherhead F.C.'s ground at Fetcham Grove for the 2017–18 season. On 16 January 2018, Kingstonian announced they would be on the move once more, this time to King George's Field in Tolworth to share with Corinthian-Casuals F.C. starting in the 2018–19 season.
  The sale was hugely detrimental to Kingstonian, it has made the local club's future very uncertain, with them unable to play in a ground that is now too big and expensive for a non-league side and one which they no longer have any decision over, having now to relocate.
caption: Kingstonian's former home, Kingsmeadow
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix F600EXR", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix F600EXR Ver1.01", "Image DateTime": "2012:09:22 14:21:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "2350", "Image XPKeywords": "[70, 0, 65, 0, 67, 0, 85, 0, 80, 0, 32, 0, 50, 0, 48, 0, 49, 0, 50, 0, 32, 0, 81, 0, 51, 0, 0, 0]", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8404", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5714", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/900", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:09:22 14:21:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:09:22 14:21:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "16/5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "989/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "63/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "211/20", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "21/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4608", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8194", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "7166", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "7166", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4124"}