Match Preview: Southern League Premier South
Basingstoke Town vs Gosport Borough
When: Saturday 5th April 2025 Kick-off 3pm
Where: Winklebury Centre, Winklebury Way, Basingstoke. RG23 8BF
Gosport Borough (The Boro), Avg 2024-25 Home Att 881
Following one or our better performances of the season, despite a number of enforced changes, we now head home to take on side possibly lacking real incentive as they sit in a mid-table position.
Tomorrow we host Gosport Borough, who we played back at the start of the season, and after dominating and leading 3-1, two late Gosport goals, saw us drop our first points off the season. Our goalscorers on the day was a stunning bicycle finish by George Reid, and two penalty conversions by now Gosport player Nnamdi Nwachuku.
Our Opponents
Gosport have a new Manager since we played last August, as Danny Hollands, took over the role from Pat Suraci & Joe Lea who jointly managed the Club. Hollands playing career, included time at AFC Bournemouth and of course local side Portsmouth.
Gosport sit two places and three points above Stoke, as they head to Winklebury, and like us they only won once in the month of March, a worthy 2-0 win at Dorchester. Their record now sits at Pld 37 Won 11 Drawn 11 Lost 15 and 44pts. Their away record sits at 5 wins, 6 draws & 7 losses. Ex-Stoke player Dan Rowe, did not stay at Gosport for too long, and now currently plays for Kingstonian. Gosport did then replace him, with another ex-Stoke forward Nnamdi Nwachuku, who has added two goals since arriving. Their leading goalscorer is Asher Yearwood, who has found the net thirteen times from his midfield role. Yearwood, had stints at Risborough Rangers, before joining from Beaconsfield Town. Ex-AFC Totton striker Alfie Stanley is back for another season, after arriving at the club last February. Stanley has eleven goals this season. They also have club legend striker Daniel Wooden, back for another season at the club, and has added seven league goals. He started at the club in 2010, after impressing at Moneyfields, and apart from a short stint at AFC Portchester he rejoined in 2021. Another striker is Ayo Faniyan, who joined in pre-season from Hayes & Yeading Utd.
Apart from Yearwood, Boro’s midfield contains winger Bradley Tarbuck, who has been at the club since 2021. He started his career at his boyhood club Portsmouth, making two appearances for them before leaving in 2015 to join Havant & Waterlooville. There’s the experienced Danny Hollands, who rejoined for another season, who has made over 500 football league appearances in his career for clubs such as AFC Bournemouth, Crewe, Eastleigh and he also won the Division 1 title whilst at Charlton Athletic. They also have Jake Cope an attacking winger who joined having spent the last three seasons at Sholing. Cameron Murray joined the club in July having spent last season at Poole Town.
In defence they have Charlie Wassmer, joined in June 2023, after a loan period from Hayes & Yeading. He has played for a number of clubs, including Crawley Town, Cambridge Utd & Margate. They signed 23 year-old centre-back Joe Morrison from Beaconsfield Town back in December and he’s back in the starting eleven this season. Young Brighton academy player Harry Lee has also joined the Boro on loan and is a right-back. Rory Williams is likely to be the left-back tomorrow afternoon, who started his career in Boro’s youth ranks, but has also played for Havant & Waterlooville & Andover. Two weeks ago they added experienced St Vincent & The Grenadines International Defender, Chevron McLean, who at 28 years-old has played for the likes of Whitehawk, Cheshunt and Dover.
In goal for Gosport is likely to be Adam Parkes who they signed from Taunton Town. Parkes has played previously played for Southampton, Watford, Barnet & Plymouth amongst others.
Our Basingstoke Town Side
With the transfer deadline approaching, and Basingstoke’s usual midfield taking a major hit from the previous Saturday, Manager Dan Brownlie made two moves to bolster the area, signing Josh Green from Rayners lane & Malachi Ogunleye from AFC Bournemouth’s academy. Even Dan & Aaron would admit that both these signings played above what was expected, and brought a new life into our midfield, as they outplayed promotion chasing Walton for most of the game. George Reid’s second goal of the season, was fully deserved, following his strong all-round performance. With that valuable point we moved up to fifteenth in the league, with our record at Pld 37 Won 9 Drawn 14 Lost 14 and 41pts. Our home record is not the best at 5 wins, 5 draws & 8 losses.
Depending on how attacking we line-up tomorrow, then I expect very little change from last week, with Liam Ferdinand, being supported by attacking wingers George Reid & Robbie Gallagher. Jayden Brissett is of course an option, but he has sometimes been an option off the bench. Connor Barratt, another attacking winger will be an option off the bench as well.
As mentioned above our usual midfield three of Sam Deadfield, James Dickson & Ben Cook, were all missing last week, bringing in the talents of Green & Ogunleye into the starting line-up. Both James Dickson & Ben Cook, will return to the match-day squad, and Manager Dan Brownlie has to make some difficult decisions on who starts tomorrow. D’Andre Brown made a welcome and noticeable short appearance last Saturday, so if there’s no reaction from that, then he could play a much bigger part tomorrow. Pele Koulsseoue, who has failed to break into the starting line-up, and has been missing from a couple of our fixtures, I fear may have chosen to return to Chippenham, as the travel for him from deep in the West Country, is not ideal.
Our five-man defence were superb in stubbing out most of Walton’s attacks last week, and actually made them look quite ordinary, and if not for that late, late goal would have given us all three points. Therefore we could retain the back five with our captain Billy Upton marshalling his two other centre-backs Jack Ball & Scott Armsworth, who both stood out last week. This leaves our wing-backs Markus Johnson-Schuster on the right, and Lewis Colwell on the left. James Clark is likely to miss-out, but has been a superb option in defence or midfield when required.
What was surprising was that Simon Grant had very little to do I goal last week, against a goal-scoring hungry Walton side, and if not for that late, late goal, would have earned an important clean sheet.
With just five league games remaining this season, and our last home win, back in January against Winchester, tomorrow afternoon would be the perfect time to get back to winning ways at home, which would also be a huge step towards safety for this season.
This is a really big game tomorrow afternoon, and as it has been confirmed by Dan, our vocal support, can really lift the team, so with the weather set fine tomorrow, why not make your way down to Winklebury and cheer on our team tomorrow at 3pm.
Match Preview by Martin French..
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