Eltham Palace Football Club was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club based in

Chislehurst Chislehurst () is a suburban district of south-east London, England, in the London Borough of Bromley. It lies east of Bromley, south-west of Sidcup and north-west of Orpington, south-east of Charing Cross. Before the creation of Greater ...

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

, England.

History

The club was established in 1961.Mike Williams & Tony Williams (2012) ''Non-League Club Directory 2013'', p646 By the late 1970s they were playing in the Western Section of the

Kent County League The Kent County Football League (known as the Kent County League) is a football competition based in Kent, England and adjacent area. The league was founded in 1922 as the Kent Amateur Football League and comprised Eastern and Western sections w ...

. After finishing as Division Two runners-up in 1979–80, the club were promoted to Division One.Kent County Amateur League 1979–1984
Non-League Matters They were Division One runners-up in 1981–82, earning promotion to the Premier Division. However, their first season in the Premier Division saw them finish bottom of the table, resulting in relegation back to Division One. In 1987–88 the club were Division One runners-up again and were promoted to the Premier Division.
Non-League Matters Following league reorganisation, Eltham Palace were placed in Division Two (West) for the 1992–93 season. Despite finishing bottom of the division in 2001–02, the club were not relegated.
Non-League Matters They finished as runners-up in 2009–10, earning promotion to Division One West. The following season saw them again finish as runners-up in their division, earning a second successive promotion, this time to the Premier Division. A third-place finish in 2011–12 was enough to allow the club to move up to the

Kent Invicta League The Kent Invicta Football League was a football league in England, formed in 2011 to commence operations for the 2011–12 season. It covered the traditional English county of Kent, some of which is now in Greater London. It merged with the Southe ...

. In 2016, the league merged with the Southern Counties East League, becoming the league's Division One. In July 2016 the club was taken over by Stansfeld O&BC of the Kent County League.Stansfeld complete Eltham Palace takeover bid
Kentish Football, 14 July 2016 However, they continued playing under the Eltham Palace name until the end of the 2016–17 season. A Sunday League team of the same name was established in 2020, playing in the Woolwich and Eltham Sunday Football Alliance.

References

{{Coord, 51.39125, N, 0.162664, E, display=title Defunct football clubs in England Defunct football clubs in London Association football clubs established in 1961 1961 establishments in England Association football clubs disestablished in 2016 2016 disestablishments in England Kent County League Kent Invicta Football League Southern Counties East Football League