Chertsey Town vs Poole Town – Match Preview
In front of a bumper Bank Holiday crowd of 1851 the Dolphins were unable to find their top form and went down 2-1 to local rivals Wimborne Town.
That defeat leaves us still 3 points clear in the fight for one of those play-off places. With Walton & Hersham now confirmed as champions and Gloucester City and Farnham Town set for second and third place, four clubs, Poole Town, Berkhamsted, Chertsey Town and Sholing will be fighting it out for the two remaining places, probably right until the final whistle of the final game.
We are making the trip to Surrey on Saturday to face one of those clubs chasing the play-offs, Chertsey Town at Alwyns Lane. They are currently in 7th place, (P39 W18 D10 L11 64 points) and have an excellent home record, taking 14 points from their last six home matches. They have won 10 home matches and drawn 5 losing just 4. They travelled to Walton & Hersham on Monday and came away with a 2-1 win courtesy of a late strike from Luke Robertson.
It has been a completely different season for Chertsey this year, they narrowly avoided relegation last season, their first at this level, finishing on 47 points, just one point and a better goal difference than Winchester. The Curfews were our last opponents at Tatnam last season, and our 3-1 win went quite some way to securing our own place in the Southern League Premier South.
The reverse fixture was played on a very sunny afternoon in September when Shaq Gwengwe gave us the points with his 72nd minute goal which was created from a long midfield pass from IK Hill.
Top scorer for the Curfew on 19 is midfielder Bradley Wilson, a wide player who signed in November from Basingstoke Town where he spent five seasons as a prolific scorer. He was previously at Kingstonian and Fleet Town but has broad experience after playing in Australia. Bradley started his career in the youths’ systems at Reading and Watford and later played for Metropolitan Police.
Another forward who has performed well this season is Ollie McCoy who has scored 11 goals to date. He has played for several clubs with spells at Chesham United, Birmingham City, Yeovil Town, Wealdstone and Beaconsfield.
During this season, the club decided to promote player Toby Little to be their manager, he originally signed for the club in July 2023 after playing for a number of clubs including Hayes & Yeading, Woking and Chesham United, but more recently Beaconsfield Town.
In their post-match interview on Monday, Pat & Joe were very frank in their description of the defeat to Wimborne and hinted that there would be changes ahead of this very important fixture. We have come a long way this season and it would be a great shame if we failed to hang onto the play-off place that has looked there for the taking for most of the season.
Enjoy the game
Neil Wellington.