Will this be the season AFC Portchester’s promotion dream becomes reality? – preview of the 2020/21 Wessex League

It was all set to be one of the most thrilling Premier Division title races in recent Wessex League history.
AFC Portchester (orange) and Baffins Milton both have ambitions of reaching the Southern League. Picture: Vernon NashAFC Portchester (orange) and Baffins Milton both have ambitions of reaching the Southern League. Picture: Vernon Nash
AFC Portchester (orange) and Baffins Milton both have ambitions of reaching the Southern League. Picture: Vernon Nash

With just over a month of a rain-wrecked season to go, four clubs were in with a chance of claiming the championship and, with it, automatic promotion to the Southern League.

Uniquely, none of the four clubs - Alresford, AFC Stoneham, AFC Portchester and Christchurch - had ever won the Premier title. Indeed, only Alresford had ever finished runners-up.

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None of the four had been anywhere near title contenders in recent years. A year earlier, Alresford (12th), Portchester (13th) and Christchurch (16th) could only finish in the bottom nine, while Stoneham were winning promotion from Division 1.

Josh Benfield, left, was Fareham's top scorer in 2019/20. Picture: Vernon NashJosh Benfield, left, was Fareham's top scorer in 2019/20. Picture: Vernon Nash
Josh Benfield, left, was Fareham's top scorer in 2019/20. Picture: Vernon Nash

The Purples were aiming to become the first club ever to win the Premier title at the first attempt (not including Bashley in the league’s inaugural season in 1986/87).

Between them, those four clubs were separated by just 11 points when the season was initially halted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently declared null and void by the FA.

The hope is that the 2020/21 season - beginning this weekend - will produce a title race every bit as thrilling as the last one was promising to be.

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After all, that hasn’t always been the case - 29 points between the top four in 2008/09, 25 points in 2012/13, 23 points in 2005/06 and 2015/16, and a whopping 42 points between champions Sholing and fourth-placed Portland in 2018/19.

Horndean's Harry Jackson (red) missed a large chunk of last season with a knee injury. Picture: Vernon NashHorndean's Harry Jackson (red) missed a large chunk of last season with a knee injury. Picture: Vernon Nash
Horndean's Harry Jackson (red) missed a large chunk of last season with a knee injury. Picture: Vernon Nash

With Sholing’s runaway success still fresh in the mind - they finished 31 points clear of runners-up Horndean - it was important, for credibility’s sake, that the 2019/20 Wessex League season provided a more far equal, far more entertaining, top flight title battle.

It certainly did just that.

So who is expected to feature at the top in the coming months?

Well, Portchester will be most people’s title favourites after some impressive pre-season captures.

Dec Seiden, right, in action for a US Portsmouth side who were seven points clear at the top of the Wessex League Division 1 table when the 2019/20 season was halted.  Picture: Duncan ShepherdDec Seiden, right, in action for a US Portsmouth side who were seven points clear at the top of the Wessex League Division 1 table when the 2019/20 season was halted.  Picture: Duncan Shepherd
Dec Seiden, right, in action for a US Portsmouth side who were seven points clear at the top of the Wessex League Division 1 table when the 2019/20 season was halted. Picture: Duncan Shepherd
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No fewer than five players have arrived from Alresford - Craig Harding, Mike Gosney, Liam Hibberd, Joe Chamberlain and Luke Dempsey.

Sholing’s prolific Lee Wort is another high-profile signing who knows exactly what it takes to win the Wessex.

The Royals might have lost Dan Wooden and Jason Parish - to higher tier pair Gosport and Bognor respectively - but Harding and Wort certainly bring the promise of goals.

Harding was the Premier’s second top scorer last term, with 19 - one fewer than Stoneham’s Scott Hills - while Wort scored 36 times when Sholing won the 2013/14 Wessex title and 27 times when they lifted it again in 2018/19.

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Portchester possessed the best goals-per-game ratio in last term’s top flight - 2.57 - and don’t be surprised if that proves to be the case again.

At the back, the signings of Dempsey and Hibberd should shore up the defence, while Cameron Scott has returned to the club to provide fresh competition to No 1 keeper Brad Snelling.

Portchester have come a long way since the turn of the millennium - they did not play in the Wessex League until 2004/05, finishing 14th out of 20 in the third tier behind the likes of Ordnance Survey, Otterbourne, Paulsgrove and Netley Central.

Reaching the Premier Division in 2012, their highest finish in the top flight has been third in 2014/15 under Graham Rix - though they were on course to potentially beat that last term.

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Could this be the season chairman Paul Kelly’s dream of Southern League football comes true?

With last season’s squad having totally broken up, Alresford cannot expect to be challenging again. But AFC Stoneham, last term’s surprise packages, cannot be discounted.

They haven’t lost any key players and have brought in ex-Pompey Academy striker Sam Woodward and Alresford’s Duarte Martins to provide further goal options alongside Hills, Callum Laycock and Ed Jiminez.

The latter three netted 66 league and cup goals in 2019/20, while Woodward has Wessex form - top scorer with 27 goals for Hythe & Dibden in Division 1 in 2018/19.

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Hills (penalty) and Woodward made a good start to the new season by netting in Wednesday’s come-from-behind FA Cup triumph at Baffins Milton.

In recent years, Horndean have been the Portsmouth area’s best performing Wessex club.

Since Michael Birmingham took over in the summer of 2016, they have finished sixth, fourth and second. They were sixth again last term when life went into lockdown.

Deans have lost several regulars from last season - Jack Maloney, Alfie Lis, Greg Peel and the Kanjanda brothers.

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But he can still call on the likes of Harry Jackson and Bobby Scott.

Jackson netted 28 goals in 2018/19 but missed most of last season with a serious knee injury, while Scott struck 20 goals in 23 league and cup outings in 2019/20.

Fareham Town were on course for their best finish in a decade when the pandemic struck.

They were seventh, with games in hand, and targeting what would have been only the Reds’ third top six finish since entering the Wessex League in 1998.

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Only Portchester had a better goals-per-game average than Fareham’s 2.55, with Josh Benfield - an early-season recruit from Portchester - quickly proving himself one of the best forwards in the division.

Gary Austin and Simon Woods are two other strikers proven at step 5 level, while Luke Slade and Lewis Stockford reached double figures from midfield.

The Reds mixed it with the best last season - hammering table-toppers Alresford 7-1, winning 1-0 at Portchester and beating Horndean 3-0 at Cams Alders their standout results.

With a greater consistency against the lesser sides, boss Pete Stiles should be confident of leading Fareham into the top six for the first time since 2009/10 - and even possibly equalling (or bettering) their best-ever Wessex finish of third in 2002/03.

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A seemingly never-ending string of home postponements cost Baffins Milton the chance of gaining any worthwhile momentum last term.

After finishing fifth in 2018/19 - in only their second ever season at step 5 level - the weather was a major frustration for boss Steve Leigh.

To his total shock, he was replaced after the season had been brought to a premature end by ex-Hawks midfielder Shaun Wilkinson.

Like Portchester, Rovers have made no secret of the fact that they want to follow in Moneyfields’ footsteps and progress to the Southern League.

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Like Portchester, they have invested heavily in their ground facilities in recent years to help make that vision a reality.

But unlike Portchester, Wilkinson’s new-look squad will need time to gel and a sustained title challenge in the next eight months could be beyond them.

Following Parish’s move to Portchester last October, Baffins lacked a regular marksman in the games they did manage to play - only 11 in the league from the start of November to the middle of March.

Wessex title-winning sides generally boast at least one player who can score 20 or more goals. While Portchester and Stoneham possess such players, the same cannot be currently said for Rovers.

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Only the champion club are guaranteed promotion this season. But due to the expansion of step 4 in 2021/22, more sides than usual will be promoted from step 5.

In the North West Counties, Northern League and Northern Counties East, the top thre sides will be promoted automatically.

In the other 11 divisions, including the Wessex, the four runners up with the best points-per-game records will be promoted. The other seven runners up will play off against the seven bottom sides at step 4 to see who will play at step 4 in 2021/22

The bottom side from each of the 14 step 5 divisions will also be ranked on a PPG basis. The two sides with the best records will be reprieved, the other 12 will be relegated.

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Had the pandemic never existed, there would be five Portsmouth area clubs in the top flight of Wessex football in 2020/21.

US Portsmouth were on course to win promotion for the first time since entering the league’s second tier in 2004 when Covid-19 took a stranglehold on all our lives.

They were 11 points clear of fifth-placed Downton, with the top four clubs going up in Division 1 and only eight games left to play.

Now they must do it all again in what looks a fiercely competitive second tier.

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Bemerton Heath will be favourites, with boss Ian Saunders - who led Petersfield to the Wessex title in 2014/15 - bringing in players with Southern League experience at neighbouring Salisbury and AFC Totton.

They complement the division’s outstanding striker, Gosport Borough legend Justin Bennett.

Bennett netted almost 50 goals last season, and opened his account for 2020/21 with a double strike in Tuesday’s FA Cup win over higher division Horndean.

Andover New Street were second when last season was halted, seven points behind USP but with three games in hand.

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Last term’s 22-goal top scorer Luke Hooper has left, but New Street have brought in Brett Denham, who is Tadley Calleva’s record goalscorer with over 220 to his name.

USP boss Glenn Turnbull fully expects Downton to be challenging as well, and the Wiltshire club have signed Lee Vint who netted over 20 goals for divisional rivals Verwood last term.

USP have kept the same squad, and added a sprinkling of new faces - with young defender Sonny Harnett-Balkwill, who played for Hawks in the Hampshire Senior Cup last season, impressing in pre-season.

We have been forced to wait a long time for the resumption of competitive grassroots league football. To be honest, we have waited longer than we would ever have expected to.

Let’s hope the 2020/21 Wessex season has been worth waiting for as far as our local clubs are concerned ...