Duncan Gardner shares his latest edition of Facts of the Match ahead of this afternoon’s clash with Havant & Waterlooville.
Our near-ish neighbours from over the border in Hampshire have been regular opponents in the league, FA Trophy, Southern League, cup and friendlies since Havant Town and Waterlooville merged in 1998. Overall the Hawks have a slightly better record with 14 wins to our 9 with 5 games ending in parity.
This will of course be our third meeting this season following a 0-2 home defeat in September (two late goals by the visitors counteracting a dogged Terras performance), before we exacted revenge just a month later when Ahkeem Rose scored in the 90th minute in the final qualifying round of the FA Cup to send the fancied hosts crashing out of the competition!
Before this campaign our most recent encounter was a September friendly in September 2020, just before our return to National League level. That day we secured a 3-1 home win. In the previous season we met twice in the conference south during our playoff winning campaign but on both occasions the Hawks took all three points, a 0-1 loss on New Years Day before a titanic February tussle at Westleigh Park when we were on the wrong end of a five-goal-thriller, Hobson & McQuoid with our consolation goals.
Over a dozen players have played for both teams over the last 25 years including Abdulai Baggie, Tyler Cordner, Chukki Eribenne, Yemi Odubade & Shaun Wilkinson.
One current Hawk of course was once a key player for the Terras in the form of Jake McCarthy. The Blandford lad played 182 times for Weymouth over four seasons from 2017 before making the trip east. Jake scored 29 times in midfield for Weymouth including two penalties and three free kicks, weighing in with 23 assists.
