Finding ourselves outside the top division once more as the decade began, manager Liam Daish set about a rebuilding task in the summer of 2010 with the Fleet playing for the first time in what was then called the Conference (Blue Square) South.

Few gave the Fleet much chance of an immediate bounce back into the Conference but Daish’s new side, with youth-team prospect Michael West finding his feet during the season to score 20-plus goals alongside the same return from former League striker Calum Willock, fired the club into a first-ever play-off campaign. Fleet blazed past Chelmsford City in the semi-finals and won a dramatic final at Farnborough in front of 4,230 to return to the top division at the first time of asking. That season also saw another FA Cup clash in front of the TV cameras when AFC Wimbledon broke home hearts with two late comebacks to win in extra time.

The Fleet survived two seasons back in the Conference but still under MyFC ownership, financial problems came to a head with debts mounting, tax bills unpaid and an impending sense of doom that the club would close following relegation in 2013. A saviour came in the form of Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi and KEH Sports who bought the club that summer and set about an immediate stadium revamp and squad rebuild. It did, however, mean the end for Liam Daish’s memorable eight-year reign as boss, the longest of any Fleet manager, and he was replaced by former Charlton full-back Steve Brown.

Brown earned a Kent Senior Cup win – the club’s first in more than 30 years – in his first season but it was overshadowed by defeat in the promotion final at home to rivals Dover Athletic and he departed the club after an average run of form the following season. Welling’s title-winning boss Jamie Day was brought in and he was given the green light to recruit an entirely new squad in mid-season with players signed from the Football League including striker Danny Kedwell from Gillingham.

It was a short-term gamble that didn’t pay off as the Fleet were edged out in an FA Trophy quarter-final but more importantly failed to make the play-offs and Day departed a week before the end of the season to be replaced by former player Daryl McMahon.

The new manager started the 2015/16 season with a record-breaking series of wins and earned a second-place finish in Conference South for the Fleet, whose season-long lead at the top was gradually eroded by a remorseless Sutton United who overhauled McMahon’s side to take the title. Worse was to follow as Fleet led Maidstone United 2-1 in the promotion final with seconds left, only for our Kent rivals to equalise in dramatic circumstances and then win the penalty shootout.

McMahon regrouped in 2016/17 but despite earning 96 points and going through early 2017 unbeaten and winning 17 of the last 20 games, the Fleet had the bad luck to come up against another stunningly in-form side as Maidenhead United took the title by two points. This time, however, the Fleet made it through the play-offs, coming from behind with 10 men to defeat Chelmsford City in another exciting final.

The first season back in the Conference – or what was by now called the National League – saw a late-season surge in form to earn the Fleet a place in the play-offs and our second best finish of all-time in sixth place. Overcoming Aldershot Town in the eliminator – in perhaps the club’s most dramatic game that involved a last-minute equaliser in extra-time and a penalty win after coming back from 3-1 down in the shootout – the Fleet went on to take on Tranmere Rovers in front of 10,000 people at Prenton Park for a place at Wembley and a crack at promotion to the EFL. After twice taking the lead, an injury-hit and exhausted Fleet side eventually succumbed in extra-time.

The decade ended with a reshaping of the playing budget through 2018/19 and McMahon made way for experienced manager Garry Hill. He almost earned the club another play-off campaign but after a squad rebuild and disastrous start to the 2019/20 campaign, Hill was sacked and replaced by his assistant Kevin Watson with the Fleet bottom of the National League heading into the 2020s.

Off the pitch, the ownership of KEH Sports saw ambitious new ground development plans take shape and in 2016, a new Main Stand was built and opened following demolition of the 60-year-old Stonebridge Road terrace. The intention was to replace all four sides of the ground with new stands but those plans halted and were to be transformed into a much more ambitious development during the following decade.