In the 1989–90 season Dover Athletic won the Southern League championship, but failed to gain promotion to the Football Conference as the club's ground did not meet the required standard.

[5] Under Kinnear the club's fortunes turned round, with two top-five finishes followed by the Southern Division championship, and with it promotion, in the 1987–88 season.

[6] The team started strongly in the Premier Division, finishing in sixth place at the first attempt, and then winning the championship in the 1989–90 season.

[7] The club was denied promotion to the Football Conference, however, as the Crabble Athletic Ground did not meet the standard required for that league.

[11] The club then appointed former England international Peter Taylor as manager, but he was unable to steer the team away from the foot of the table, and Dover held onto their place in the Conference only because Northern Premier League runners-up Boston United failed to submit their application for promotion before the required deadline.

[14][15] Former Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall took over but was dismissed just three months later, with Clive Walker taking over in March 2002 with the club rooted to the foot of the table.

[7] The new season started with six successive defeats, which saw Langley sacked, and the financial problems continued, with the club coming within two months of being closed down.

[20][21] Dover were relegated to the Isthmian League Division One at the end of the season,[7] but were saved from possible extinction in January 2005 when former director Jim Parmenter returned to head up a consortium that took over the club.

[24] Dover Athletic narrowly missed out on an immediate return to the Premier Division in the 2005–06 season, reaching the play-offs for promotion but losing out to Tonbridge Angels.

[25] The following season Dover again reached the play-offs but lost in the semi-final to Hastings United,[26] after which Walker did not have his contract renewed and was replaced by former Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler.

[28] In the 2009–10 season, Dover reached the play-offs for promotion to the Conference National, but lost at the semi-final stage to Woking.

[34] On 10 May 2014, Dover beat Ebbsfleet 1–0 at Stonebridge Road with a goal from Nathan Elder, enough to seal the club's return to the top flight of non-league football for the first time since 2002.

The club's shirts have been sponsored by companies including Criccieth Homes, Paul Brown of Dover, Jenkins and Pain, cross-channel ferry operators Hoverspeed and SeaFrance, local car dealership Perry's, and Gomez, the company owned by Dover Athletic chairman Jim Parmenter.

[48] The stadium, commonly known simply as "Crabble"[49] or, imprecisely, as "The Crabble",[50][51] forms part of a larger council-owned complex,[52] and the earlier Dover club originally shared the lower pitch with a rugby club, but moved to the upper pitch in the 1950s, adding a grandstand in 1951, followed soon after by terracing and floodlights.

[2] Dover Athletic continued to make improvements to the ground, although not in time to allow the club to take its place in the Football Conference in 1990.

[63] The highest home attendance in the club's history was 5,645 for the match against Crystal Palace in the third round of the FA Cup on 4 January 2015.

In the 1997–98 season the Whites reached the semi-finals of the FA Trophy but missed out on an appearance at Wembley, losing to Cheltenham Town.

[67] The holder of the record for most appearances for Dover Athletic is Jason Bartlett, who played in 539 matches, and the all-time top goalscorer is Lennie Lee, with 160 goals.

The shortest stay was that of Ian Hendon, who was announced as manager on 28 May 2010 and resigned only 18 days later to join Andy Hessenthaler at Gillingham.