Alton FC
Anstey Park
Anstey Mill Lane
Alton
Hampshire
GU34 2NB
Ground: 108
Date: Saturday 29th February 2020
Alton 2-3 Totton & Eling
Wessex League Division 1
Attendance: 164 (official)
Alton - History
Alton were founded in 1991 as Alton Town Bass as a merger of the original Alton Town and Bass Alton, being placed in Division 1 of the Hampshire League. After one season, the club changed its name to Bass Alton Town. After six inconsistent seasons in Division 1, the club again changed its name ahead of the 1998/99 season, this time to Alton Town. This name change saw the club go on to finish as Division 1 champions to earn promotion to the Premier Division.
The club's first season in the Premier Division saw them finish third-from-bottom and just about scrape survival, even with a points deduction. The following season saw the club fare much better and finish 7th, before they went on to win the title in the 2001/02 season. This earned the club promotion to the Wessex League. The club's first few seasons in the league saw them languishing towards the bottom of the league, and they were placed in Division 1 when the league gained a second division in the 2004/05 season.
The 2006/07 season saw Division 1 renamed as the Premier Division and the club continued to finish in the bottom half of the league. At the beginning of the 2013/14 season, the club were transferred to the Combined Counties League Premier Division, but this transfer saw the club finish second-from-bottom and suffer relegation to Division 1. The club then spent one season in Division 1 - finishing fourth-from-bottom - before being transferred back to the Wessex League's Division 1.
After a respectable 7th-place finish in the 2015/16 season, the club changed to its current name. The club has remained in Division 1 of the Wessex League ever since, with three mid-table finishes to their name. This season has seen the club positioned on the fringes of the promotion race as they seek a return to the Premier Division.
The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 2nd Qualifying Round in the 2010/11 season, beating Chichester City, Merstham and Sutton United before losing in a replay to Cinderford Town. As for the FA Vase, the club's best run has seen them twice reach the 2nd Round: in the 2004/05 season, they beat Andover New Street and Oakwood before losing to Winchester City; in the 2011/12 season, the club beat Hamworthy United, New Milton Town and Brading Town before losing in a replay to Wantage Town.
My Visit
As I mentioned in last week's blog entry, my initial plan for yesterday had been to leave my groundhopping destination to a poll, with Andover Town, East Grinstead Town, Fareham Town and Hungerford Town as the options. In fact, rather than waiting until midweek to do it, as I would usually do, I decided to set it up the evening after finishing that blog entry. I left it up for 24 hours and waited for the votes to come in.
Those were the end results, so Hungerford positioned itself as my first choice, with the plan being to work through the rest of my options in vote percent order if the weather took a turn for the worse, with this on the 3G as my last resort. The only problem with that was something I was told in the replies not long after publishing the poll, namely that East Grinstead is currently inaccessible on the train after a landslip in the area. I decided to keep it on the poll despite this (in the hope that I'd find some other means of getting there if it won), but in reality this was a pointless endeavour.
In any case, my destination was decided by Monday evening, so all I could do was wait during the week and hope that the weather would improve after being consistently awful for the best part of three weeks (ever since Storm Ciara came in on Sunday 9th of February). The week got off to a dry start and that filled me with some optimism, but from Wednesday onwards the rain arrived and barely abated for a moment.
Friday was a particularly bleak day on the weather front, with torrential rain for much of the afternoon as Storm Jorge heralded its arrival. This meant that a lot of matches went from looking likely to go ahead to suddenly being in danger of being off. In fact, all three of my feasible options - as I'd learned East Grinstead was truly impossible at this point - were set for morning pitch inspections before I went to bed on Friday night.
By the time I woke up yesterday morning, Hungerford Town had already bitten the dust and Andover and Fareham had both followed suit by 10:30am. I did briefly consider looking for other options on grass, but an early morning hail storm in Guildford put me off of that idea, as it felt like there would be too much of a risk of matches on grass being abandoned in the rare cases where they were going ahead.
Thankfully, I had this in place as a last resort on the 3G, so I gladly booked my train tickets after the hail storm subsided, having plenty of time to get ready and have an early lunch before leaving the house at 12:50pm. Having got cash out on Friday, I had a little more time to spare upon arrival at the station, collecting my tickets and getting on the 1:25pm train to Aldershot with ten minutes to spare.
The journey was a quiet one, with the trains being almost empty as I headed towards Alton, re-reading Frankenstein for University on the way. After fifteen minutes, the train arrived at Aldershot and I got off there, getting on another train heading to Alton ten minutes later. This train arrived at around 2:10pm and I arrived at the ground just over ten minutes later, after a short and direct walk to the ground.
Upon arrival at the ground, I paid £3 for student admission and £1 for the programme (rather than the £1.50 advertised on the cover). After taking a few moments to prepare for my circuit of photos, I encountered a familiar face from the Tony's Non-League Forum, who I last bumped into at Marlow at the end of the November. This was an unexpected surprise for both of us, as from our postings on the forum we both expected to be elsewhere entirely, but with the weather decimating the fixture list again, it perhaps wasn't too surprising that we ended up at the same place.
We chatted for a few minutes, with him advising me to sit at the back of the stand to properly avoid any rain, before heading our separate ways for a while. After this, I went and did my usual circuit of photos, before ordering a cheese burger with an egg for £3.50 from the tea bar by the entrance. This was the first football food I'd had since visiting Saffron Walden Town in early January, and it was excellent.
I then took a seat at the back of the main stand as kick-off approached and dark clouds begun to appear overhead, leaving my seat at half-time to take advantage of the free tea voucher on offer in the programme. I then returned to my seat at the back of the stand, even though I knew that being at the back offered no protection from the elements (the hail storm and blizzard in the first half soaked me even at the back) and that the sun - which came out again after half an hour of football - shines right towards it and into your eyes.
Looking at the table and recent form of both sides, there was only one outcome that seemed likely here, though I did predict that the crazy weather would potentially act as an equaliser to some degree.
Here's my report on a competitive match with Totton & Eling nicked at the death, having twice come back from behind in a match played in chaotic weather conditions:
The match began in blizzard-esque conditions as hail - and eventually snow - battered the ground in amidst winds strong enough that players couldn't keep the ball in place at set pieces. This led to some frantic opening exchanges, with both teams punting the ball upfield in an attempt to make the most of the conditions. As a result, there was little flow to the match at first as neither team was able to keep control of the ball for long.
As we approached the fifteen-minute mark, the two teams started to keep the ball on the ground and this saw Alton spurn a couple of decent chances as they went on the attack: in the 12th minute, Liam Knight crossed into the box from the left wing and Matty Benham shot over the bar after having an initial effort blocked; two minutes later, a free kick from deep was nodded on to the centre of the box where a player volleyed goalwards, only to be flagged offside.
At the other end, Totton & Eling could only break on the counter and wasted a golden chance in the 17th minute: a ball over the top set Jo Sutherden through on goal and he first had a shot blocked by Alton keeper Stephen Douglas. He then attempted to round the keeper, only for Douglas to push the ball away and force Sutherden to shoot from a difficult angle and miss the target. Six minutes later, Alton's Luke Perkins audaciously shot from 25 yards and rattled the crossbar, with George Bowerman being flagged offside in his attempt to score on the rebound.
After a finely-poised ten minutes of football, Alton took the lead in the 33rd minute when Bowerman was unmarked to head home from a corner. It could have easily been 2-0 in the 36th minute when Bowerman latched onto a perfectly-weighted through ball and found himself one-on-one with Totton & Eling keeper Oli Eyres, but his first touch let him down as he rounded the keeper and the ball drifted out of play to somehow earn his side a corner. Just before half-time, Totton & Eling equalised after a scramble in the box: an initial effort hit the crossbar and, through a scramble of bodies, Sutherden was able to poke in. There was some controversy around the goal, with claims of it being handled over the line, but the referee gave it after consultation with the linesman.
The second half started slowly as both teams struggled to regain their first-half rhythm, but Totton & Eling seemed to be playing with a greater urgency and causing a few more issues for Alton. However, it was Alton who had the half's first clear-cut chance in the 57th minute when a cross from the left wing was carried goalwards, forcing a fingertip save from Eyres. After clearing the corner that followed, Totton & Eling went up the other end and almost took the lead, Harry Burns' curled effort being just inches away from nestling in the top corner.
In the 62nd minute, Totton & Eling came close again when a free kick was excellently played towards the far post, but neither attacker could get a touch on it to poke it in. From the goal kick, Alton were quick to play the ball upfield and earned themselves a corner moments later, with Phil Moore being left unmarked to head in and reclaim the home side's lead (it looked like his header was being played back across goal, but it ended up catching everyone out and drifting into the net instead).
There was another lull in proceedings after this as Alton sought to frustrate Totton & Eling and limit their chances, while the away side tried to break through as they pushed for an equaliser. After a couple of positive substitutions, Totton & Eling began to up the pressure and eventually made it count in the 79th minute: Alton were unable to get the ball clear and this allowed the away side to get a cross into the box, with Luke Cron dummying to let the ball run to Johnny McAulay for an easy finish.
The last ten minutes largely remained at a tense impasse as both teams cautiously sought a winner, while trying to avoid leaving too much space open for counter-attacks. This meant that the next clear-cut chance didn't come until the 89th minute when a Totton & Eling defender hesitated to clear, giving Alton's Steve Black time to clatter a shot into the post. Then, deep into stoppage time, Totton & Eling's Burns nicked a winner: Morgan Callaway was able to break on the left wing and charged goalwards, squaring the ball to McAulay who then set Burns up for the finish. After play resumed, Alton had one last chance to try and equalise, but it was too little too late and the away side claimed the points.
While it took quite a while for both sides to adapt to the conditions, we got an entertaining contest once both teams were able to get and then keep the ball on the ground, even if tensions did threaten to boil over at times. A draw probably would have been a fair result on the balance of play, but Totton & Eling did well to keep up the pressure until the very end.
As happened at Marlow, I was offered a lift back to the station and, after an afternoon of ridiculous weather, I was happy to take him up on his offer. This only took a few minutes and, after thanking him for the lift, I headed into the station with around fifteen minutes to spare, though my train was already on the platform.
I initially headed onto the train and went to the toilet, before heading back out to watch a steam engine (No. 30925, "Cheltenham", according to Wikipedia) departing from the Mid-Hants Railway, a heritage railway positioned directly next to the main Alton station. I got a video of the train departing and was about to head back onto my train, but stayed outside for a few minutes more as the Flying Scotsman came into the station. I then got that on video before getting back on my train as it prepared to depart.
After all of that, the train journey back was once again quiet, though much of it was wasted on trying to get those two videos to upload to Twitter. After that was done, I got off at Farnham at around 5:25pm and finished reading the last of Frankenstein, before getting a train from there to Guildford ten minutes later. This arrived back in Guildford just before 6pm, meaning I got back into the house at around 6:20pm and got to work on sorting my photos and writing out my match report.
Up next will be a visit to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday night, with Norwich hoping to reach the FA Cup Quarter Finals with a victory. After that, I'll be trying again for Fareham Town next Saturday, with the weather hopefully being more cooperative this coming week after a miserable February weather-wise.
The Ground
Anstey Park is a good ground for Step 6 with a decent amount of character despite being a reasonably new build. The only seating at the ground is in the form of a 150-seater Arena stand on the near side which, as mentioned previously, is terribly positioned: on Saturday afternoons, the sun faces right into the stand and if it rains the wind consistently blows it all the way to the very back of the stand.
On the far side of the ground is a large area of terracing, two-thirds of which is covered while the rest is uncovered. The uncovered terracing is visibly older than the covered terracing, with moss covering the vast majority of the steps. This terracing probably provides standing for around 500 people overall, with around 300 of this being under cover.
That aside, the rest of the ground is flat, open hard standing, with plenty of space for expansion as and when the need arises in the future.
Photos
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