AFC Totton
Fresh from Wednesday's Southampton Senior Cup Semi-Final victory over Winchester City, the Stags travel to Wiltshire to face mid-table Highworth Town in the run-in, as we focus on making the playoffs.
We've laid on away travel - see ticket office for details: afctotton.ticketco.events/uk/en
Having dominated Wiltshire football during the 1960s and 70s, Highworth Town were first promoted to the Hellenic League in the mid-80s. Their involvement in the Southern League began in the 2018/19 season, when they achieved a creditable 14th-placed finish, four places behind the mid-table Stags.
When AFC Totton scored two late goals to overcome stubborn resistance from the Worthians at the Snows Stadium in the third match of their 2021/22 Southern League Div.1 South campaign in late-August, the result sent the Stags to the top of the table with a 100% record.
Highworth, meanwhile, were embarking upon a season in which they have given as good as they’ve got to lay down strong roots in mid-table, during a period that has them competing at a higher level of the English Football League Pyramid than at any other time in their entire 129-year history.
Now, with three games remaining in the 2021/22 campaign, the Swindon-based outfit have 41 points from 33 matches, from which they have amassed 12 wins and 16 defeats. Despite their mid-table position, Highworth have found goals hard to come by, with a current total of 38; only Bideford have scored fewer goals with 30. Their total certainly has not been helped by a current run of just 4 goals from the last 10 matches, in which they have also conceded 19 times. Totton, by contrast, are the third-highest goalscorers in the division with 77 – but the Stags will need no reminder of what happened at Bideford just over a fortnight ago.
Highworth were the first team to take three points from Frome Town this season, with a 1-0 home victory over the Robins on Saturday 20 November, courtesy of a 24th-minute Ashley Edenborough winner. Other highlights include a 5-1 home win over Evesham United and a Southern League double over fellow mid-table dwellers Paulton Rovers, the Worthians winning 3-2 away in September and 4-1 at home in mid-January.
In March, Highworth signed Ross Langworthy, a 29-year-old pacey, attacking wide midfielder or striker, from Fairford Town of the Hellenic League Premier Division. He brings considerable Southern League experience to the team from spells at Shortwood United, Slimbridge and Cirencester Town, having also played in the Southern Premier with Yate Town and with two clubs in New Zealand during 2017.
Highworth’s Elms Recreation Ground is shared with the town’s cricket club, where their record attendance was a full-capacity 2,000 crowd for a 1994 pre-season friendly with Queens Park Rangers to mark the installation of new floodlights. Two separate stands along the same side of the ground offer a total of 150 seats.
Commenting on the imminent trip to Highworth after Tuesday night’s Southampton Senior Cup semi-final victory over Winchester City, Stags manager Jimmy Ball told AFC Totton TV:
“It’s going to be tough. It’s a tricky pitch, they’re a tricky side. They’re physical, they’re aggressive and we will have to deal with everything they throw at us. But, over the last few games, these lads have shown some real grit and determination and togetherness – and that is really, really important in these next three games because we’re playing for our lives, we’re playing with everything we’ve got.”
HIGHWORTH TOWN – LAST 5 MATCHES (ALL COMPETITIONS)
Tue 22 Mar Mangotsfield United A Southern League Div.1 South W 1-0
Sat 26 Mar Sholing A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-4
Sat 02 Apr Slimbridge H Southern League Div.1 South D 0-0
Sat 09 Apr Barnstaple Town A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-4
Tue 12 Apr Plymouth Parkway A Southern League Div.1 South L 0-2
AFC TOTTON vs HIGHWORTH TOWN – PREVIOUS MEETINGS
The name Ashley Edenborough crops up again-and-again during the recent history of Highworth Town, and no more so than in his team’s clashes with the Stags.
The now 35-year-old forward scored the only goal of the game when the two sides met in the league for the first time in August 2018, but a Craig Feeney brace and a third goal from Justin Bennett at the Snows Stadium just four days after Christmas Day gave Totton the three points in the return fixture, winning 3-1 despite Edenborough’s 59th-minute equaliser to Feeney’s late first-half opener.
In the ultimately cancelled 2019/20 season, Edenborough was on-target again when the two sides met at the Elms Recreation Ground on 12 February but he couldn’t prevent his side going down 2-1 to goals by Adam McWilliam and Jack Smith. In the return match just 10 days later, two goals from striker Silvano Obeng ensured the spoils were shared, goals from Daniel Drewett and Edjidja Mbunga in the 71st and 77th minutes, respectively, having put the visitors 2-1 up until Obeng levelled seven minutes from time.
Both 2020/21 fixtures between the two sides fell foul of the November cancellation of last season. But they renewed hostilities in late-August 2021, when Jack Hoey (pictured above) opened the scoring on 27 minutes. Oliver Case’s header from a corner brought the visitors level 12 minutes into the second-half, but Totton were not to be denied. Ethan Taylor put the Stags back in front two minutes from the end of the regulation 90, and there was still time for Hisham Kasimu to race clear to win and then convert a stoppage-time penalty to wrap up a 3-1 home win that took Totton to the summit of the Southern League Div.1 South table with three wins from three.
By Ben Rochey-Adams and Malcolm Toombs, Historian
Image courtesy of Craig Hobbs Photography
Kit illustrations courtesy of Bolid74
