AFC Totton
This is it! Our last home game of the campaign... potential play-offs notwithstanding, of course.
Don't miss this - it's sure to be a BIG one!
Tickets are on sale now from the ticket office: afctotton.ticketco.events/uk/en
Sholing’s 2021/22 season in the Southern League Div.1 South has followed a similarly frustrating trajectory to that of their Easter Bank Holiday Monday hosts, AFC Totton.
Like the Stags, the Boatmen were among the division’s early pacesetters. As recently as Boxing Day, the two clubs occupied 2nd and 3rd in the table, respectively, both on 36 points with a game in-hand over the leaders Frome Town, who were 6 points clear at that point. Current leaders Plymouth Parkway had begun to see their Bolitho Park pitch fall foul of the winter weather but even adding 9 points for the three games they had in-hand, they would have still been trailing the two Southampton-based sides on 34 points.
But, while Parkway were busy stringing together an impressive run of results throughout the New Year period and beyond to storm up the league table, both Totton and Sholing have stumbled and tumbled out of the play-off spots, leaving them fighting one another and Winchester City in a somewhat parochial battle to keep promotion hopes alive.
Sholing began 2022 with a handsome 5-2 away win at Lymington Town, in the first match of Brett Williams’s January loan spell with the Lymos. A 1-1 draw at home to Bideford followed for the Boatmen, before their Tuesday night victory over Totton at the Mackoy Stadium on 25 January and a respectable goalless draw at home to fellow promotion challengers, Cirencester Town.
Then, like Totton, Sholing went down 1-3 at Winchester City during a tempestuous local derby that featured an opening Winchester goal by Rob Flooks, shortly before he made the switch to the Snows Stadium. A 5-0 win over Melksham Town was sandwiched between defeats to Frome Town and Plymouth Parkway, as the Boatmen began to float down the league table. Stuart Green’s hat-trick at Cinderford Town last weekend inspired their second win in six matches but any faint, mathematical hopes they had of making the promotion play-offs were killed off by Tuesday night's 0-3 defeat at Slimbridge, making their stoppage time win over Willand Rovers this Saturday merely academic.
But, with potential local bragging rights of a possible league double over AFC Totton up for grabs, Jimmy Ball’s men will know that the form book will count for little when the match kicks-off on Easter Monday.
LAST 5 MATCHES – All Competitions
Wed 30 Mar Paulton Rovers A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-1
Sat 02 Apr Bristol Manor Farm A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-1
Sat 09 Apr Cinderford Town A Southern League Div.1 South W 4-1
Tue 12 Apr Slimbridge A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-3
Sat 16 Apr Willand Rovers H Southern League Div.1 South W 2-1
AFC TOTTON vs SHOLING – Previous Meetings
These two teams have been frequent competitors over the course of a shared history in the Wessex League and Southern League. Since the 2004/05 season, there have been 24 meetings of which Sholing won 15 against Totton’s 8, with just one draw.
Mike Gosney was a frequent scorer of goals during that period, notching a total of 9 (including one penalty) against the Boatmen between 2006 and 2011. He was on target in the Final of the Hampshire Senior Cup in 2011, when a brace from Michael Charles saw the Stags run out 3-1 winners to lift the trophy before a crowd of 1,384 at St. Mary’s Stadium.
Sholing got their own back a couple of years later by putting paid to Totton’s ambitions of an FA Cup-run with a 1st Qualifying Round knockout by a 0-4 thrashing. And the Boatmen won 3 of the next 4 meetings, until goals from Brett Williams, Ethan Taylor and a late Jordan Ragguette double saw the Stags on their way to a handsome 4-1 away win in the Southern League Cup, earlier this season.
When the two sides met again at Sholing at the end of January in their rearranged first league meeting of the season, Ethan Taylor gave Totton an early second-half lead but goals from Stuart Green and Daniel Mason, with a late free-kick, were enough for the Boatmen to take all three points.
ON-TARGET: Brett Williams opened the scoring for Totton in their last win over Sholing, in the Southern League Cup tie at the Mackoy Stadium in October.
By Ben Rochey-Adams and Malcolm Tombs, Historian
Image courtesy of Craig Hobbs Photography
Kits illustrations courtesy of Bolid74
