A single strike in first-half stoppage time saw Bashley slip to a narrow defeat despite a gallant second-half effort at the Snows Stadium.

It was a crisp afternoon in spring sunshine for the most part with supporters of both clubs attired in clothing more suited to January.

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I arrived just before 2pm and was able to purchase this in the Totton club bar for a tenner and someone on Twitter from Carlisle quipped that they could get it for half the cost ‘oop’ there.

Totton began the day in second place in the Pitching In Southern League South Division with Bashley having just sneaked into the play-off positions at the expense of Tavistock who visit the Glen Mex in a fortnight’s time.

In the first half, Bashley played the kind of attacking football witnessed at Wimborne the week before but didn’t really trouble the home goalkeeper who said to me at half-time “you’re really hard to break down”.

Totton were more huff and puff but you could see in the final third of the half that their wing play improved and they were looking more of a threat.

And so it wasn’t much of a surprise when in the dying embers of the half, Tommy Wright swept home a strong shot that left Ross Casey helpless.

Overall my view is that Bashley’s performance merited a point but of course if you can’t put the ball in the net than that is not forthcoming and at the final whistle you could see how much of a relief it was for the home team because they had rode out the Bashley storm.

Not a tempestuous one but the visitors forced a few saves from the Totton keeper and fought tooth and nail in pursuit of an equalizer and I said to one of our players (no idea who though) after the final whistle to keep believing.

I think the funniest thing second half was one of the local children nearby, he couldn’t have been more than seven, politely asked me if Bashley had any Championship players in the team. 🤣

Well we do have some international sounding players of course.

A visit to Frome Town on Tuesday may be a good place and time to return to winning ways as the Bash have defeated Frome twice already this season.

The eventual crowd of 1251 was a little like the 802 at Wimborne in that it didn’t really look as much but the away fans, particularly in the second half, young and not so young, were in good voice in cheering the gold and black on.

In the short video that follows, there are several action clips fused together but without my somewhat over-excited production from the previous week which many thought was good fun but several did not.

Just an adaption for me to learn and make really which I shall, as I’m still very much a new supporter and there is much to take in with new surroundings. That said, I have still been made most welcome and I’m sure that I’ll be a regular fan for the future.

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