AFC Totton
Next up is the last of three away games on the bounce for The Stags...
VENUE: King George V Ground, Southern Road, Exmouth, Devon EX8 3EE
To book your Coach Ticket, call StagsTravel Club on 07540 124 719
OF ALL THE TEAMS in the Southern League Div.1 South, last year’s Western League Premier Division Runners-Up Exmouth Town are the last to make the acquaintance of AFC Totton, with The Stags’ long away day trip to Devon on Wednesday being the first meeting between these two sides this season. In fact, according to our records, Totton and Exmouth have never played each other before.
Totton are yet to face Melksham Town in the 2022/23 league campaign, but did knock them out of the Emirates FA Cup at the Preliminary Round stage back in August. This week’s match at Exmouth’s King George V Ground at Southern Road was originally scheduled for Saturday 29 October, but had to be re-arranged due to Totton’s progress in the Isuzu FA Trophy.
Buoyant after their promotion from Step 5, Exmouth began their league season with three consecutive wins at the expense of Melksham, Wimborne Town and Paulton Rovers, before local rivals Willand Rovers burst their bubble with a 0-1 defeat in the August Bank Holiday Monday match at Silver Street. The Town responded by going on another five-game unbeaten run that kept them up amongst the early pacesetters in the Southern League Div.1 South until late-October.
Four consecutive defeats followed – 1-2 at home to Bishop’s Cleeve, 1-3 at Tavistock AFC, 0-4 at Sholing and 0-1 at Frome Town – before a home win over Bashley put a stop to the rot on Saturday 19 November. The team’s form has blown hot and cold since then. They rounded off January with a handsome 5-0 win over Frome Town, and draws against relegation battlers Cinderford Town and Slimbridge AFC mean they come into Wednesday’s game unbeaten in their last three matches.
Exmouth haven’t torn up many trees in cup competitions this season. In the Emirates FA Cup, Western League Premier Division side Buckland Athletic, who come from Newton Abbot in Devon, triumphed 2-1 at their own Homers Heath ground in the Extra Preliminary Round. Berkhamsted thrashed Exmouth 5-0 in the Isuzu FA Trophy, before going out of the competition at the Snows Stadium in the subsequent round, thanks to a late strike from Jake Adams in a 2-1 victory for The Stags.
Top of the goalscoring charts for Exmouth so far this season is Jordan Harris, described online by the Exmouth Town Supporters’ Club as a strong bull of an old-fashioned centre-forward. He is currently fifth in the division’s scoring chart, with 12 goals in the league so far – two places behind our own Scott Rendell (pictured below) on 14 goals. Harris’s tally includes a hat-trick in the recent thumping of Frome and early goals in both of the two games since.
Former Tiverton Town striker Levi Landricombe has been another regular entry in the goalscorers’ column for The Town, his most recent an injury-time consolation goal in a 1-2 defeat at Wimborne Town. He doesn’t appear to have featured for the team since then, though.
The intriguingly named Ace High is a long-serving Exmouth Town player, who set records for his goals in the South Western Premier League in 2018. He has only found the net on three occasions this season; the first claimed all three points at Larkhall Athletic in November, the second got the ball rolling in that big win over Frome and the third was Exmouth Town’s most recent goal, securing a point at home to Slimbridge AFC eight minutes from the end on Saturday.
For a newly-promoted team to be sitting just outside of the play-off places going into the second half of the season is certainly commendable. But, Exmouth have won 11 matches and lost 10 in the league this season, and only three points separate them from Melksham in the bottom half of the Southern League Div.1 South table. They will be keen, though, to continue battling with local rivals Tavistock AFC for the last of the play-off spots, which – as the table currently stands – could set up a nervy knock-out match at the Snows Stadium in May.
By Ben Rochey-Adams
Image courtesy of Craig Hobbs Photography
