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The current plight of one of my local men’s non-league teams, Fareham Town, is heartbreaking. Promoted last summer, they’re finding the higher division (Isthmian South Central) hard going - they’re hanging off the bottom of the table like a broken tree branch. The only issue left is whether their relegation will be confirmed before or after Easter.
As if that weren’t bad enough, they haven’t played a game at their own ground since early November, thanks to flooding that, with all the rain we’ve been having, still hasn’t been able to be cleared three months on. At first they postponed their home games, but they now have too much fixture congestion lined up to carry on doing it. So at the end of January they played two home matches at my nearest ground, Privett Park, home of Gosport Borough.
It’s well known that I’m drawn to underdogs. The ‘Creeksiders’, I knew when the games at Gosport were announced, are a team I need to be supporting.
So I went along to the Fareham home games at Gosport, talked to their volunteers, bought 50/50 draw tickets and played their blackout cards. The atmosphere was good-natured enough, the beleaguered ranks of the Fareham faithful being swollen by curious Gosport Borough fans (one of whom said to a Fareham supporter “We’re doing you a favour. Goodness knows why”) and curious Portsmouth fans.
Fareham got a respectable draw with Littlehampton in the first game but lost the second, against Southall, to a 97th minute free kick - defeat in the most dismal way imaginable. When the goal went in Chris, their superfan, said “Well, back to the Wessex League then”. It was hard to argue with.
I have pre-existing commitments to attend other local games with a friend for most of the rest of the season, but in between those I’m now following Fareham whenever I can. The game we’d planned to see today was called off this morning with a waterlogged pitch, so I made for Moneyfields’ John Jenkins Stadium where Fareham were playing at ‘home’ to Binfield.
I met Chris in the bar. The volunteers are coming to know me by sight now. On the blackout card I chose Burnley, prompting the man in charge of the card to remark “they’ve got to win something”. Halfway through an even first half, Jamie Arnold sent Fareham’s small hardcore contingent into raptures heading home an Asad Ssemwogerere cross.
But Binfield equalised minutes later then took the lead soon after.
At half time the blackout card man was trying to sell the last four teams. I agreed to have another go and chose Man City, and got called a star.
But just after the hour Fareham’s Dan Bennett was caught napping on the ball, allowing a Binfield player to take the ball off his feet and neatly sidefoot past stranded keeper Dec McCarthy. 1-3.
I guess miracles in football are few and far between.
As if that weren’t bad enough, they haven’t played a game at their own ground since early November, thanks to flooding that, with all the rain we’ve been having, still hasn’t been able to be cleared three months on. At first they postponed their home games, but they now have too much fixture congestion lined up to carry on doing it. So at the end of January they played two home matches at my nearest ground, Privett Park, home of Gosport Borough.
It’s well known that I’m drawn to underdogs. The ‘Creeksiders’, I knew when the games at Gosport were announced, are a team I need to be supporting.
So I went along to the Fareham home games at Gosport, talked to their volunteers, bought 50/50 draw tickets and played their blackout cards. The atmosphere was good-natured enough, the beleaguered ranks of the Fareham faithful being swollen by curious Gosport Borough fans (one of whom said to a Fareham supporter “We’re doing you a favour. Goodness knows why”) and curious Portsmouth fans.
Fareham got a respectable draw with Littlehampton in the first game but lost the second, against Southall, to a 97th minute free kick - defeat in the most dismal way imaginable. When the goal went in Chris, their superfan, said “Well, back to the Wessex League then”. It was hard to argue with.
I have pre-existing commitments to attend other local games with a friend for most of the rest of the season, but in between those I’m now following Fareham whenever I can. The game we’d planned to see today was called off this morning with a waterlogged pitch, so I made for Moneyfields’ John Jenkins Stadium where Fareham were playing at ‘home’ to Binfield.
I met Chris in the bar. The volunteers are coming to know me by sight now. On the blackout card I chose Burnley, prompting the man in charge of the card to remark “they’ve got to win something”. Halfway through an even first half, Jamie Arnold sent Fareham’s small hardcore contingent into raptures heading home an Asad Ssemwogerere cross.
But Binfield equalised minutes later then took the lead soon after.
At half time the blackout card man was trying to sell the last four teams. I agreed to have another go and chose Man City, and got called a star.
But just after the hour Fareham’s Dan Bennett was caught napping on the ball, allowing a Binfield player to take the ball off his feet and neatly sidefoot past stranded keeper Dec McCarthy. 1-3.
I guess miracles in football are few and far between.
