AFC Totton
GLOBAL TECH GIANTS GARMIN made the short trip from their European headquarters to celebrate the continuation of their sponsorship of Southern League Premier Division South football club AFC Totton, on Monday.
Jon Oliver, Managing Director of Garmin UK & Ireland – whose offices are located on the outskirts of Totton – led an entourage from the global fitness brand’s Sales & Marketing team to visit the Snows Stadium, to meet with AFC Totton’s recently-installed Director of Football James Beattie and First Team Manager Jimmy Ball, together with CEO Steve Brookwell and Commercial & Sponsorship Manager Keely Ball.
The sponsorship, which began shortly before the start of last season, sees Garmin continue as the main sponsor of AFC Totton’s home jersey and for the 2024/25 campaign, also the team’s away shirt, as well as taking advantage of matchday advertising opportunities throughout the club’s 3,000-capacity home ground on Salisbury Road. Garmin has also supplied the club with devices to track their fitness and inform training plans.
Currently enjoying one of the most successful periods in the club’s 138-year history, The Stags finished runners-up in the Southern League Premier Division South last season, just a year after achieving automatic promotion to Step 3 of England’s non-league football pyramid with a league and cup treble. Former Forest Green Rovers boss Ball also took his team to two more cup finals in May, resulting in them lifting the SDFA Southampton Senior Cup for a record-equalling third season in a row.
“When we were originally considering this partnership with AFC Totton, we were very impressed by the quality of the facilities here at the Snows Stadium, and by the professionalism of the approach taken by the management team,” explained Oliver, who heralds from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire and has been a lifelong supporter of Watford FC since the tail end of the Luther Blissett and John Barnes era at Vicarage Road.
“Our European HQ has been in Totton for 25 years, and we are passionate about investing in the local community. We are proud sponsors of the New Forest Marathon as well as our Garmin Ride Out event, in partnership with Action Medical Research, which brings together cycling pros and Garmin ambassadors to encourage people to get out there and become more active.
“Recent developments at AFC Totton have clearly shown the club’s ambitions are entirely consistent with our own. While its meticulous, professional approach to sports science is delivering the goods on the pitch, encouraging greater participation with the ongoing development of youth and women’s teams, the club is also making massive strides with its initiatives off the pitch.
“Programmes such as the AFC Totton Academy and the recently-launched Development Programme, which provides alternative provision education, demonstrate that the club shares that same commitment to being a force for good in our community. I’m delighted that we are able to come together and support each other in achieving our mutual objectives.”
Jon Oliver, the Managing Director of Garmin UK & Ireland (centre), poses with AFC Totton's Director of Football James Beattie (left) and First Team Manager Jimmy Ball (right).
Since last summer, the AFC Totton players and backroom staff have been using Garmin Forerunner® 965 and 265 smartwatches to gather 24/7 data on the players’ heartrates, recovery times and sleeping patterns. These are paired with the HRM-Pro Plus TM chest strap heartrate monitors during matches and training sessions.
The players use the Garmin Connect app to upload the data to their individual accounts, while the coaching staff utilise the Garmin Clipboard platform which enables them to analyse the data on both a personalised and aggregated basis. This allows them to inform and shape individualised training regimes for each player.
Manager Ball is in no doubt as to the important role that Garmin played in the Stag’s success last term, helping his team to go within a penalty-kick of winning promotion to the National League South.
“The information that we’re now able to gather has become central to our entire approach to training and team selection. We now have invaluable insights on how much sleep a player is getting, their stress levels and how quickly their heartrate recovers to its normal level after a burst of activity.
“Gathering the data is one thing but knowing how to interpret and apply it is something else, and the support we have received from the data analysts at Garmin has been excellent. I am extremely lucky as a football manager to have a great medical team and, with Garmin’s help, they have been incredibly enthusiastic in adopting this data-driven approach.
“Our players are fitter and stronger, and their improved stamina is evident from the number of early and late goals that we scored throughout the course of last season. The injury statistics show that throughout the season we had almost the whole squad to choose from. When players did have to miss games we were able to quickly get them fit to play again, without having to ask them to take unnecessary risks, because the data was there to show whether the player was physically ready or not.
“Football is a game of fine margins, and any way you can gain a competitive advantage can make all the difference. Our partnership with Garmin was central to all that we achieved last season and I’m delighted that it is set to continue.”
By Ben Rochey-Adams
Images courtesy of Tom McKenzie
