What an introduction to the world of Bashley FC.

A thumping five-nil away win and the team playing the kind of football belonging to leagues higher than the Southern Division.

And it was an attendance, 802, that would match Boreham Wood in the National League.

Writing this the morning after, I can only find the match summary on the Wimborne Town website.

All I know really is that Lovell got a brace, Morgan and Roberts got a goal each which leaves the free kick which may or may not have been from Ollie Balmer.

But heres my first Bashley vlog, a little skewiff as somehow it’s to the left somewhat but you can make out most of the text and the reaction from Bash fans over on Twitter has been positive.

And that’s good because I promise to do better at Totton.

That victory has put The Bash in touch with the top five. Tavistock wining has kept them three points ahead but a win Tuesday in Devon could see Bashley enter the group and pull away from Evesham.

You would expect Totton to be a far bigger test and so today I’ll be researching and compiling a pre-match article for next Saturday’s big clash.

In thr meantime, here’s the three-minute compilation from yesterday.

ORIGINAL POST

Now that I’ve called time in following the Shots up and down the country, I’ve had to replace football-watching with a locally sourced club, from which I have chosen Bashley Football Club.

Bashley are in the New Forest and from where I live, it’s not too far really for a home game, get off at New Milton station and a twenty minute walk to the ground or a three minute taxi ride.

The Bash, as they are affectionately known, have a batch of away games right now and lost a cup game 0-2 at Sholing FC last time out.

Today sees them travel to Wimborne Town in the reverse fixture of which Bashley won 5-2 with a Harry McGrath hat-trick.

Hark at me, writing like I’ve been there and done it all. The internet plus copy and paste means it’s easy for me to blog and vlog (and I may well make a video) but in reality this is a totally new kick.

I don’t know any of the team or supporters and I’ve never been to Wimborne! So that’s why I’m mapping everything out in a mini-guide, just like I do for Aldershot Town away games. Of course I wish I could be at Barnet and it’s still all rather tempting but having given 45 years of my life traipsing up and down the breadths of Blighty, I’m too old now to be doing that and having fibromyalgia doesn’t lend itself to excessive travelling.

On arrival at the square, walk south down to Dean’s Court and turn left into East Street and pass The Rising Sun public house.

Cross over the roundabout into the B3073 (Leigh Road) and pass Long John’s Fish And Chips and M&S Simply Food in the right.

Keep going (and this does look like, on Google Maps anyway, a ginormous walk) until Parmiter Drive on the right which turns into and Ainsley Road and the football ground is around there in the right – somewhere.

Now this Olive Branch (see map) sounds like a nice place I could stop off for pre-match lunch. There are of course plenty of pubs in Wimborne Minster itself and I think I’ll definitely be taking a taxi down to the ground.

Wimborne Town itself looks to be a well supported community club. The website has a detailed match preview and while it’s £12 for a Southern League Southern Division game, there are concessions apparently. Currently Wimborne are in a better position than Bashley in the table, having a game in hand and eight points better off and will be out for revenge today in what I suppose you could loosely call a derby game.

You can see though that a Bashley win combined with a loss for Tavistock would mean drawing level on 41 points.

This league, and I’m joining it late this season, you can see has clubs that would still require a fair amount of travel for away games; who would have thought I would see myself travelling to Exmouth although I have of course been to Torquay enough times with the Shots and having done a 92 although not the current 92, there are grounds I’ve been to when my uncle first started taking me in the late 70s that don’t exist anymore. Here are two examples – can you name them?

Wimborne, like Notts County and Newcastle play in black and white stripes and are The Magpies. In their last two outings they have struggled a bit though, drawing with Melksham at home and losing three nil in Wiltshire so you could definitely say there is Frome for improvement!

Well that’s it for the moment. This post will be updated and completed post-match with my own report on proceedings with photos and who knows, maybe a video too.

1030am

Breakfast done, it dawns on me that this will all be a bit anti-culture – not drinking on trains 🚆and therefore maybe no portable music for the short journey 🎧 as I am used to an mp3 player with me so right now I’m having a pure morning playing my Placebo folder. A friend in need’s a friend indeed. A friend with weed is better.