Ex-Portsmouth striker makes Gosport Borough switch as he continues to bounce back from heart-breaking Fratton Park exit

A former Pompey player has returned home for the latest chapter of his footballing journey.

Alfie Stanley suffered a heart-breaking Fratton Park exit in June 2021 after the club pulled the offer of a new deal.

The Academy graduate had made two first-team appearances for the club he supports, yet joined a long list of promising young talent shown the door that summer.

After subsequent trials at Burnley, Wycombe and Eastleigh, he linked up with Dorchester Town in September 2021, before moving onto AFC Totton last summer.

Now the ex-Mayfield School pupil finds himself back in the area, after joining high-flying Gosport Borough for the remainder of the campaign.

The 22-year-old is challenged with helping Joe Lea and Pat Suraci’s side secure promotion from Southern League Premier South.

Presently positioned fourth, they occupy the play-off spots, although trail leaders Chesham United by 13 points, with one game in hand.

Still, with Totton one place behind Borough, Stanley has swapped one promotion battle for another after struggling to make their starting XI in recent months.

He links up with former Pompey Academy team-mates Harvey Rew and Harry Kavanagh, who left Fratton Park in the same summer as the striker.

While the duo subsequently found themselves at Privett Park, Stanley signed for Dorchester and went on to net 23 goals in 80 appearances over two seasons.

That goal-scoring record persuaded newly-promoted Totton to snap up the attacker in June, managed by Jimmy Ball, son of two-time Blues boss Alan and a former Pompey youth-team coach.

He wasn’t in the Totton squad which drew 1-1 against Gosport at the end of January, yet now bolsters their attacking options for the final 15 matches.

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A Fratton Park season-ticket holder for 12 years, latterly in the Fratton End, Stanley was regarded as a highly-promising free-scoring striker during his rise through the Academy.

His first-team debut was a start in a Papa John’s Trophy defeat to West Ham Under-21s in November 2020 - and the following month lined-up at Cheltenham in the same competition.

That 2020-21 campaign would see Stanley named in six of Pompey’s last eight League One squads by interim head coach Danny Cowley.

That summer, a total of 11 members of the Blues’ first-team squad would depart, in addition to 11 second and third-year scholars.

Among them was Stanley, who was offered a one-year professional deal and granted six weeks to think about it - only to later be informed by Cowley the contract was no longer on the table.

Now his career has brought him to Gosport, with plenty of goals already behind him in his young career.