Kent Invicta was based at Maidstone United Football Club's London Road Stadium.
For the opening game the club had recruited a mixture of Southern based players and experienced Northern 'imports'.
There was no rugby league played in Kent and the nearest professional club was Fulham over forty miles away. However, despite the obvious difficulties of establishing a club in an area new to rugby league, many people in the sport were excited about the prospect of rugby league being played in Kent and thought that the club would be a success.
The attendance for the opening game against Cardiff City, on 21st August 1983 was 1,815, a promising start. However, after the opening game the only other attendances in four figures were 2,107 for the John Player Trophy cup tie, on 6th November 1983, against St Helens and 1,643 for the Challenge Cup tie against Castleford, on 11th February 1984.
After the opening fixture against Cardiff, attendances for League fixtures declined with the majority of games attracting less than 700 spectators.
By beginning of November 1983 Kent Invicta was bankrupt and had to be taken over by Jim Thompson, the Chairman of Maidstone United. As the season wore on problems with the pitch began to affect both the soccer club and the rugby league club.
When, towards the end of their first season Southend United approached Jim Thompson with an offer to take the club to their Roots Hall Stadium it was readily accepted.
The final game of the season at Maidstone was played on 12th May 1984, a re-arranged fixture against Rochdale Hornets and just 412 spectators were in attendance.
The Rochdale game should have been played on 25th March 1984, but was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch. Bob Fox, the Invicta secretary, is pictured on the programme cover for following home fixture inspecting the pitch before the Rochdale game was called off.
Kent Invicta disappeared from the rugby league scene at the end of the 1983/84 season.
Southend Invicta
Unfortunately, the move to Southend was also unsuccessful probably because the Essex town had no rugby league history or tradition at either amateur or professional level. Southend Invicta struggled, on occasions, to raise a full team for its away games and was only in existence for one season. Attendances at their Roots Hall ground often failed to reach three figures. For their final home game, against Huddersfield played on the 26th of April 1985, the attendance was recorded at just eighty five spectators.
A sad end to an experiment that despite the initial enthusiasm of many rugby league administrators and enthusiasts always seemed doomed to fail.
Despite Southend Invicta only existing for one season there is a website, still in existence, that records the 1984/85 season
