AFC Totton
NOW THAT THE DUST HAS BEGUN to settle on the historic events of last Bank Holiday Monday, when AFC Totton defeated Gloucester City in the Play-Off final to reach Step 2 of the English non-league football pyramid for the first time in their entire 139-year history, we can start to contemplate the 2025/26 season ahead and the array of opponents that The Stags will face in the Vanarama National League South.
The division will consist of 24 teams in total. This season’s National League South Play-Off final between Boreham Wood and Maidstone United will take place on Sunday 18 May, and the non-league Sorting Hat will then be required to determine which of this defiantly southerly cohort should shuffle over to the National League North alongside the likes of newly-promoted Merthyr Town and AFC Telford United.
Among the potential runners and riders when the new southern section kicks-off on Saturday 09 August will be this season’s beaten Play-Off contestants. Torquay United missed out on top spot in 2024/25 by virtue of scoring just two goals fewer than Champions Truro City. Then, to add insult to injury, The Gulls lost at home to Boreham Wood in their Play-Off semi-final to leave them at Step 2 for at least another season. Also falling at the Play-Off hurdle were Eastbourne Borough, Worthing and Dorking Wanderers, after the 46-game regular season left Dorking in sixth place just three points behind the title-winning Truro.
Of the four teams dropping from the National League, Dagenham & Redbridge, Maidenhead United and the Kent-based Ebbsfleet United will all come into the National League South – the other relegated side being Fylde AFC who herald from Blackpool, Lancashire.
Aston Villa and England striker Ollie Watkins’ former loan club Weston-super-Mare ended their regular season campaign just one place and four points away from qualifying for the Play-Offs, and The Seagulls will be among the favourites to challenge at the top of the division again.
WE ARE GOING UP!: AFC Totton players and fans celebrate after Ethan Taylor's 70th-minute strike against Gloucester City in the Southern League Premier Division South Play-Off final.
While Totton were busily scaling the ladder to Step 2, Weymouth stepped on a snake and slid down to the Southern League Premier Division South. However, the season ahead will bring a renewal of hostilities with local rivals Salisbury. The Whites, conquerors of The Stags in last season’s Play-Off final – lest anyone should need reminding – saved their own Step 2 lives with a one-all draw at Welling United on the final day of the season, while St. Albans City lost 2-5 at Champions Truro to find themselves consigned to the drop. North Hampshire side Farnborough ended the season in 10th place, winning 18 and losing 19 of their 46 games to end up with a Goal Difference of plus one.
Last season’s Southern League Premier Division South Champions Chesham United held their own to achieve a respectable 13th-place finish, although the Sorting Hat may yet banish either The Generals, Hemel Hempstead Town or the newly-promoted Southern League Premier Division Central Champions Bedford Town to the National League North.
Champions Horsham, who ended AFC Totton’s participation in the Isuzu FA Trophy at the Third Round stage in 2023/24, and Play-Off winners Dover Athletic are promoted from the Isthmian League Premier Division. The Whites claimed the last of the Play-Off spots, having finished 11 points behind Runners-Up Billericay Town. But a 2-1 win in Essex set-up a trip to Kent to face Dartford, where a 2-0 away win was enough to send the division’s most south-easterly side up to Step 2. So, spare a thought for the players of Dover and Torquay, who will face two 528-mile roundtrips to fulfil their fixtures with one another – assuming they don’t then meet again in the Play-Offs, of course.
Aforementioned administrative reshuffling notwithstanding, Hornchurch, Chelmsford City, Wiltshire-based outfit Chippenham Town, Bath City, Slough Town, Tonbridge Angels, Hampton & Richmond Borough and Enfield Town will complete the National League South line-up for 2025/26.
Come On, You Stags!
by Ben Rochey-Adams
Image courtesy of Harvey Gerring
