Move over Joel Ward - The proud Portsmouth ‘mush’ and ex-Fratton Park team-mate also savouring silverware

Joel Ward bid an emotional Crystal Palace farewell at Wembley with the FA Cup, while Marlon Pack and Matt Ritchie both skippered Pompey to Championship survival.

Yet there has also been success for another local lad and former member of the same Blues youth-team as the three Fratton favourites.

Nathan Ashmore never managed to reach the Football League, yet has carved out a long-term reputation as one of non-league football’s most talented goalkeepers.

The 35-year-old, who describes himself as a Pompey ‘mush’, is now toasting being back in the National League after leading Boreham Wood to a play-off triumph.

To top off the fourth career promotion, he was also named in the Vanarama National League South Team of the Season, along with team-mate Tom Whelan.

From relegation heartbreak to play-off joy 12 months later

Earlier this month, the Wood beat Maidstone 1-0 in the National League South play-off final, with Charles Clayden’s second-half goal proving decisive.

Played in front of a crowd of 3,500 at their Meadow Park home, it marked an instant return to the National League for Luke Garrard’s side following the heartbreak of relegation last season.

They were captained by the long-serving Ashmore, who has been with the club since 2019, having established himself as a huge fans’ favourite.

Hailing from Buckland and attending St Edmund’s Catholic School, the goalkeeper was once on the books of Pompey, featuring in the same age group as Ward and Ritchie for five seasons.

Ditched goalkeeping to become a right winger after Portsmouth heartache

However, he was released at the age of 14 and gave up being a goalkeeper for a period, instead featuring on the right wing for Chichester City’s first-team as well as United Services’ reserves.

Yet he would return to his favoured position to represent the Hawks, Gosport, Ebbsfleet and now Boreham Wood with great distinction.

Ashmore even returned to Fratton Park in the summer of 2013, bidding for a contract under Guy Whittingham after the fans had saved the club from liquidation at the High Court.

He played the full 90 minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Aldershot’s training ground in a team made up entirely of triallists - however, none were taken on.

Bounced back from second Portsmouth blow to feature in a Wembley final for Gosport

Within a year he was playing at Wembley for Gosport in the FA Trophy final, where they lost 4-0 to Cambridge United in March 2014 in front of a crowd of 18,120.

Future Pompey League One winner Will Norris was in goal for the opposition, as was Ryan Bird, who was on-loan from the Blues and scored in the Wembley fixture.

Now aged 35, Ashmore’s Boreham Wood team finished fifth in National League South this season to book a place in the play-offs - where, in the final, they faced a Maidstone team who ended up seven points and two places below.

The triumphant Wood team also included Callum Reynolds, another former Pompey youth-team playing colleague of Pack, Ritchie and Ward.

Signed by Paul Hart from Rushden & Diamonds in 2007, the central defender featured alongside them in their 2007-08 FA Youth Cup campaign which ended with a 2-1 defeat at Fratton Park to Plymouth in January 2008.

Reynolds would later be released in the summer of 2010 and represent Basingstoke, Tamworth, Hinckley, Corby, Aldershot, Barnet, Dagenham & Redbridge, Bromley and now a third spell at Boreham Wood.

He was named as Wood’s man of the match in their play-off final victory - yet it was skipper Ashmore who lifted the silverware.

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