It may sound like a city in China but no, our hosts this weekend are actually based in a suburb of Southampton!
The coach driver should know which way to go though as our last three meetings have all been away at Sholing and all were victories for the Terras. The trio of recent successes started back in 2019 in the FA cup when a 3-0 scoreline saw us through to the next round.
But the most recent encounter was also in the fabled competition last September when four different scorers secured a 4-1 win for the Terras (and with it progression to the 3rd qualifying round). However that wasn’t the first time we had faced the Hampshire outfit in 2024-25 as we had already faced them in a pre-season friendly victory.
We haven’t always had it our own way against “The Boatmen” though and felt up the creek without a paddle in southern league cup ties in 2011 and again in 2014, sinking out of the now defunct competition on both occasions.
Ahoy! A few crew mates have sailed in both ships over the years, most notably for Terras fans probably being Ryan Ashford, Frankie Monk & Jordan Rose.
In terms of sharp shooters in this fixture – no one comes out on top with all 11 goals to date being scored by a different player. And that theme is mirrored with the form of both clubs in the first two games of this season – the Terras cannons finding their target thrice and Sholing four times – with no one notching more than hit apiece!
For our hosts all their goals came in their last game – a 4-1 home victory over Poole that followed a 0-0 stalemate away at Yate on the opening day. Meanwhile the Terras were sent to Davy Jones’ Locker on the opening weekend – a 3-1 home defeat to promoted Evesham in our curtain raiser but won our battle in the ocean city with a 2-0 away victory on Tuesday at Plymouth Parkway (at the cost of a few sore limbs perhaps).
But…shiver me timbers!…It felt more like the Caribbean rather than Devon on that warm evening. Palm trees lined the pitch and a large flock of green parakeets flying past were clearly a good luck charm as we swashbuckled our foes in the second of our three coastal games in a row – splicing the mainbrace as we sailed back east to home waters.
But as we now steer towards the Solent will “X mark the spot” for the Terras with a draw or can Feeney’s Crew defeat what he calls “a strong physical outfit” and sail away from the boatmen of Sholing with the golden treasure of three points on the road again?…
Match preview by
Duncan Gardner
