A football club chairman who embezzled more than £500,000 from his day job to help prop up his team has been jailed for three years.

Overweight Dean Fisher splurged stolen cash having a fat-busting gastric band fitted, and lied to colleagues about having cancer to get time off work to go horse racing.

He also blew £130,000 gambling and spent more than £100,000 on luxuries including a Rolex watch and Range Rover.

The 36-year-old, who was chairman of non-league Croydon Athletic FC, stole the money by writing false invoices at advertising agency TCS Media.

Fisher’s wife and children have been left penniless after the court ordered him to sell their Caterham home to help pay off his debt, while his recession-hit firm was already struggling to keep 35 staff employed when the fraud was discovered.

TCS managing director Simon Parker said the fraud had left him "cold".

He said: “Not only was the business on its knees with the economic climate, but we now found ourselves defrauded of £500,000.

“Not only that, but it was also a shock to find that Dean had never had cancer.”

Fisher wept in the dock as Judge John Price handed down his sentence.

Judge Price said: “You tried to look big, and you were prepared to steal from the company to do it.

“You were in a position of trust, and you breached that for all the wrong reasons.”

Prosecutor Usha Shergill told the court Fisher had worked at the company in Bayswater, Central London for 15 years when the fraud began in May 2008.

The administration and production manager forged a series of invoices, telling bosses they were to pay for orders of paper, but instead diverted the funds to his own bank accounts and the football club.

More than £250,000 went into the running costs of league champions Croydon Athletic, which had a reputation in Ryman Division One South as being able to offer players attractive wages.

Daniel Jones, representing Fisher, said his client was ‘thoroughly ashamed’ of what he had done, and was determined to pay back the money he had stolen.

Former club manager Dave Garland, who ran the team while Fisher was chairman, said his jailing was a "big shock".

He said: "He was a smashing fellow, I couldn't have a bad word to say against him.

"Whatever you needed he would help you out.

"He's made a mistake and he's paying for it."

Fisher, of Ramsay Place, Caterham, admitted one count of fraud between May 2008 and August 2009.