Charles Fey chaired the meeting of St Sidwell’s United in 1904 when the club became Exeter City. He later became treasurer and, after working for an Exeter printing firm for over fifty years, retained a keen interest in local sport until his death at the age of eighty in 1956.

William Charles Powlesland Fey, always known as Charles, was a 28-year-old warehouseman living in Rosebery Road (and later Pinhoe Road), when he took the chair for the Annual General Meeting of St Sidwell’s United Football Club on 31 May 1904. It was at this meeting, held at the Red Lion Hotel in Sidwell Street, that the decision was taken to change the name of the club to Exeter City Association Football Club.

Given the newly-named Exeter City was still an amateur club playing in the East Devon League, and that Sid Thomas had taken on the duties of secretary during the 1902/03 season (a role he would continue to play until the outbreak of war in 1939), it is not entirely clear what (if any) role Charles had taken to that point. Yet we know he shortly became chairman of the East Devon FA (to whom he raised a toast at the club dinner in May 1905) and was club treasurer in November 1906 when the Football Express noted that Sid Thomas would “no doubt wish to give a great share of the praise to Mr C Fey, who latterly has helped him as Hon Treasurer’. Furthermore we know Charles Fey was still in post a year later when he wrote to the Devon and Exeter Gazette to put the record straight about a payment the club had made towards Exeter Carnival funds.

Thereafter we know that Mr Fey continued to work for James Townsend and Sons Ltd, a printing firm, until around 1946 after giving fifty-two years of service. Family history records suggest he had moved from the warehouse into the sales side of the business whilst public records show him as residing in Queens Road, St Thomas, Exeter in 1939.  

Marrying Lucy Cardew Prince (1875-1952) in 1900, Charles was living in Kennerley Avenue, Whipton at the time of his death aged eighty on 1 June 1956. His involvement in the early days of Exeter City was deemed sufficient for his Express and Echo obituary to be headlined ‘Funeral of an Exeter City pioneer’. We know from this tribute that he had been  a member of the 1st Rifle Volunteers and was also a familiar figure at Devon County Cricket Ground and the Exeter Rugby Football Ground.

Charles Fey’s funeral took place at Whipton Parish Church and he is buried in Higher Cemetery, Heavitree alongside his wife Lucy who had died four years earlier.