Match Preview: Southern League Premier South
\nBasingstoke Town vs Poole Town (All-Ticket)
\nWhen: Saturday 14th February 2026 Kick-off 3pm
\nWhere: Winklebury Centre, Winklebury Way, Basingstoke. RG23 8BF
\nPoole Town (The Dolphins), 2025-26 Curr League Position 3rd
\n<\/b>
\nA strong all-round performance, although it lacked goal-scoring opportunities, saw us pick up a valuable point at Havant last Saturday, even though this extends our winless streak to five matches, as we now host Poole Town in another tough-match tomorrow afternoon.
\nBack in November we made the trip down to Dorset, and during a torrential downpour, we lost to a solitary first-half goal, with both teams missing a number of chances in the last fifteen minutes of the game.<\/p>\n
Our Opponents
\n<\/b>The Dolphins, continue to be jointly managed by Joe Lea & Pat Suraci. Both had decent playing careers, then became joint Managers initially at Petersfield Town, then Gosport Borough, before taking over Poole Town thirteen months ago.<\/p>\n
With the Dolphins midweek game at Yate, falling foul to the weather, there last game was a 3-1 home win at home to financially-strapped Hungerford Town. This leaves them in third place, with a record of Pld 29 Won 16 Drawn 7 Lost 6 and 55pts. Their away record sits at a strong 8 Wins, 2 Draws and 4 Losses. Their forward line, starts and ends with well-known Shaquille Gwengwe, following his two goals last Saturday, this now has him as the league\u2019s joint top goalscorer alongwith Ryan Seager with thirty goals on the season. Gwengwe played three seasons for Dorchester Town, after previously being at AFC Totton, as well as Worthing, Blackfield & Langley and Andover Town. Attacking winger Ik Hill, now has six goals, after joining from Winchester City, where he started his career. He did spend a season at Westfield, but returned to the Citizens, where he scored 31 goals last season, before joining the Dolphins on a two-year deal. Tricky winger Selim Saied has five goals on the season, after spending three years at Farnborough, scoring 15 goals in that time, after starting his career in the youth ranks at Woking.<\/p>\n
In midfield, they have Antonio Diaz, with three goals, who signed from Gosport Borough last season, having been at AFC Bournemouth\u2019s academy, and then had stints at Weymouth, Dorchester and Wimborne Town. Harvey Slade is a 6\u20194 box to box midfielder who provides aerial threat, having started his career at Bashley, then on loan at Weymouth during 2023\/24 but joined the Dolphins in 2024\/25 campaign, and has added four goals this season. Billy Lowes, started his career at Poole as a 17-year-old, before spending time at AFC Totton and then five years at Dorchester. Like others in this team, he was picked up whilst playing at Bashley. Charlie Davis (28), joined after impressing at Sholing, and started at AFC Bournemouth, and then spells at local sides Weymouth & Dorchester. Henry Spalding, joined Poole at the start of this season, having played over 200 games for Swindon Supermarine over a number of stints in his career. He has also spent time at Gosport Borough.<\/p>\n
Josh Staunton is an experienced centre half who has over 200 National League appearances at the age of just 30. His journey started at Gillingham before moving to Dagenham & Redbridge in the 2016\/17 season. He spent time at Woking before joining Yeovil in 2020, then moved to Boreham Wood, where he joined the Dolphins in February 2024. At right-back will be Josh McCormick, who has spent most of this career at Winchester City, and joined the Dolphins at the start of this season. 31-year-old Ryan Campbell was the Dolphins second summer signing and spending eight years at Swinson Supermarine. The likely left-back has scored over 50 goals in his career from this role. Owen Dore, is a centre-back, who progressed through the youth ranks of Oxford United and Southampton, at 20, he signed for North Leigh in 2022, then Salisbury in 2023, and is loan from the Whites until January. Ade Olumuyiwa has won a starting role since returning to the club over the winter. In goal will be Adam Parkes who joined from Gosport at the start of this season. A reliable keeper, who previously played for Taunton Town, and before that Southampton, Watford, Barnet & Plymouth amongst others.<\/p>\n
Our Basingstoke Town Side
\n<\/b>Last Saturday\u2019s battling draw, despite lots of energy, saw us fail to score, and create very few goal-scoring opportunities throughout the game. It did see an uplift of talent with the debut of Joe Grant, and the promise of things to come. Our attacking performance also improved once Robbie Gallagher entered the game after seventy minutes, as he replaced Cheick Sylla, and if not for a poor refereeing decision in added-time, when Gallagher was felled inside the box, then we could have left with all three points. With this point we now sit in thirteenth, with our record now at Pld 29 Won 10 Drawn 6 Lost 13 and 36pts. Our home record now stands at 7 Wins, 2 draw & 6 losses. With the addition of Joe Grant, into the forward-line, our Manager now has more attacking options to consider, and proved this by last week\u2019s decision to start Robbie Gallagher on the bench, so no forward now can guarantee a starting spot in the team. What is a concern, despite the effort is the ongoing lack of goals, as our last five league games, have seen us find the net just three times. Assuming that Joe Grant gets a starting role, then who starts with him? Presumably Cheick Sylla, will be given the central striking role, that leaves George Reid & Robbie Gallagher, potentially fighting for one slot. Joe Barough, is another good option, whilst it is unclear on Ore Bello\u2019s fitness status.<\/p>\n
The Havant game saw our midfield take a while to get into the battle, but as the first-half grew, it started to win more than it\u2019s fair-share of the ball, and we looked the better team going into the break. With the goal-scoring threat of Poole tomorrow, we may look to add an extra midfielder into the mix. It would be assumed that Tom Blake has a role, but with a lot more competition in this area, then anyone could win a role. James Dickson and Josh Green were starters last week, and performed well, so do they get the nod tomorrow. D\u2019Andre Brown, a late exclusion from last weeks bench, could be in contention, whilst Ben Cook is another option. Again, Lloyd Snell, who linked up well with Joe Grant at Havant, could be an option depending on who starts in defence.<\/p>\n
To the defence, who I thought was the best area of our play last week, keeping Ryan Seager quiet for ninety-minutes, could depending on Scott Armsworth\u2019s fitness, which means our captain Billy Upton, will likely be joined by Armsworth or Jack Ball, who is chomping at the bit, to win back his starting role, is the other option in the middle. If Lloyd Snell starts in a more attacking role, then James Clark is a solid option on the right. Joe O\u2019Loughlin, has the left-back role nailed down, and continues to look strong at the back, as well as pushing forward when given a chance on the left. Elliott Legg is an option off the bench, if he is back to full fitness.
\nSimon Grant who did everything needed last week, including one stunning save, will once more be wearing the goalkeeper\u2019s jersey tomorrow.<\/p>\n
In 24-hours\u2019 time, we will host a team that will come looking for all three points to keep their promotion challenge on track, and we will need to be at our best, and need to match Poole across the park, who have a good away record, if we are to get some much-needed points. Our Management team, with a large squad available, have a number of permutations that they can go with, so who will start, only they will know, but a successful team rarely changes that starting eleven.<\/p>\n
With the unfortunate history between the two clubs, this game is now an all-ticket match, so unless you\u2019re a season-ticket holder, then I suggest you get your ticket online now, to watch what could be a humdinger of a game tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s Go Stoke !<\/p>\n
Match Preview by Martin French..<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Match Preview: Southern League Premier South Basingstoke Town vs Poole Town (All-Ticket) When: Saturday 14th February 2026 Kick-off 3pm Where: Winklebury Centre, Winklebury Way, Basingstoke. RG23 8BF Poole Town (The Dolphins), 2025-26 Curr League Position 3rd A strong all-round performance, although it lacked goal-scoring opportunities, saw us pick up a valuable point at Havant last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,107,108,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2023-24-news","category-2025-26-match-preview","category-2025-26-news","category-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Poole-Town.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9023,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9022\/revisions\/9023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btfcsc.co.uk\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}