Jack Breed ‘gutted’ to be passing up the chance of making Fareham Town history

But he wished his old club well in their pursuit of FA Vase glory after swapping Cams Alders to sign a professional contract with reigning Gibraltar National League champions Europa FC.

The 21-year-old, who moved to Fareham from AFC Portchester just after the start of last season, was part of a Reds squad who were enjoying the club's joint best run in the national step 5-6 competition this term.

They were due to make the trip to Western League Premier Division leaders Plymouth Parkway in December with the chance to make club history and reach the Vase fourth round for the first time before that was postponed because of new lockdown restrictions.

Though the Reds' Wessex League Premier Division campaign was curtailed last month, their Wembley dreams remain alive.

The Vase is due to restart next month, with Fareham aiming to cause a major shock in west Devon against a Parkway side who were top of the Western League when it was curtailed.

But there will be one squad member missing, with Breed flying out to start his Gibraltar adventure with Europa FC on March 12.

And he's bitterly disappointed he won't be able to play any further part in the Vase campaign.

‘The fact that is most likely going ahead (the FA Vase) is great for the lads, to be fair, but a bit gutting for myself because I’d have loved to have played in that,' he admitted.

‘If we won and made history it would have been an unbelievable experience.

‘Obviously the fact I think it’s only four games from Wembley, I know it’s a lot of games considering, but it’s still pretty impressive.

‘I wish them all the best and I hope everything goes well, I’m sure they’ll do well in that because they’re a great bunch of lads.

'We have got a lot of youngsters in the squad. I think there are only a couple over 30, the rest are mid and low-20s.

‘It’s definitely a young, hard-working group, I think that’s what Pete (Stiles, Fareham manager) wants, he wants to be on the front foot and make sure we work hard.

‘He won’t accept anything else other than we give everything in the game.

‘It’s definitely rubbed off on me the way he works and the way he manages and his man-management skills are very good as well.'

During his two seasons at Fareham, Breed made 27 appearances, although both campaigns ended prematurely because of the pandemic.

Last term, the Reds sat eighth in the Wessex Premier having played 27 matches when it was declared null and void.

Although they had played just 11 league games this term, Fareham lay fourth - 11 points off leaders Hamworthy having played three games fewer.

The Reds still had to play the Hammers twice, and also hadn’t met second-placed Lymington or third-placed Horndean.

Breed insisted the squad were capable of mounting a title challenge - the first one in Fareham’s Wessex League history- if it hadn't been for lockdown.

He said: ‘It’s been really frustrating (past two seasons).

‘Last season we got 27 games in the season and it was towards the end of the season when we started to do really well.

‘We were getting to the point where we thought we had a really good chance as well.

‘I don’t think we would have been able to push for the top spot but it was still so frustrating, especially the time gap we had, it was so annoying not to be able to play.

‘This season we were top of the league for a fair bit and then a lot of games got suspended and we had a few games in hand, if we’d won those I think we could have gone second or third.

‘This season was more frustrating than ever really because we feel we did have a chance to push for the top spot this year.

'I feel like we would have done well with Pete because he is such a good manager, we would have really pushed it to the final bit.

‘We had a really good team out there and I feel we could have definitely gone all the way.'