AFC Totton
AMONGST ALL THE HULLABALOO of Christmas and the New Year, and the anticipation of a long Tuesday night trip to Merthyr Town for a top-of-the-table clash at Penydarren Park, AFC Totton boss Jimmy Ball has continued to quietly go about his business in typical fashion, clocking up his 100th and 101st competitive victories in the Snows Stadium hot seat.
The son of England World Cup-winner Alan Ball took the AFC Totton job in March 2022, winning his first game in charge with an entertaining 4-2 home defeat of Bideford AFC in the Southern League Division One South. With just a handful of league games remaining in that 2021/22 season, The Stags narrowly missed out on a place in the Promotion Play-Offs and had to settle for the first of three consecutive SDFA Southampton Senior Cup titles with the 3-0 victory over Folland Sports at St. Mary’s Stadium in May 2022.
Having strengthened the spine of the team with the acquisitions of central defenders Luke Hallett and Charlie Kennedy, club captain and midfield general Mike Carter and talismanic centre-forward Scott Rendell, Ball led his charges to a league and cup treble in 2022/23, taking the Southern League Division One South title and the Champion of Champions crown, as well as a second Southampton Senior Cup with an emphatic win over local rivals Sholing.
In his second full season in the job — the club’s first at Step 3 for some time — Ball’s team competed strongly to finish as Southern League Premier Division South Runners-Up, narrowly missing out on promotion with a penalty shoot-out defeat in the Play-Off final at home to Salisbury. The Hampshire Senior Cup eluded them due to another shoot-out loss to AFC Portchester at Aldershot Town’s EBB Stadium, leaving the third Southampton Senior Cup, won on home soil against Hythe & Dibden, as their only silverware of a season that had promised so much.
Undeterred, the former Forest Green Rovers boss is again steering his team through another title challenge, with Totton poised in second place with enough games in-hand and the visit of Merthyr Town to come providing potential opportunities to achieve the primary objective of reaching the National League South for the first time in the club’s entire history.
Win number 100 came at Winchester City on Boxing Day with a comprehensive 4-1 away victory, kicked-off by Tony Lee’s early strike and capped by a first AFC Totton goal for Tega Agberhiere. Victory No.101 was the recent 2-1 home success against a Gosport Borough side that played out the last half-an-hour of the game with just nine men following the second-half expulsions of Danny Hollands and Charlie Wassmer.
Those results took Ball’s overall total in competitive matches to 101 wins in 153 games, a win percentage of 66.0, with draws at 19.6% and losses at just 14.4%. These figures do not include this season’s penalty shoot-out defeat to AFC Stoneham in the Southampton Senior Cup, which was designated an AFC Totton Development Squad game prior to the match itself and featured a mostly U23s line-up.
Speaking in his office several hours before his team were due to entertain Frome Town at the Snows Stadium (on Tuesday 21 January 2025), Ball commented:
“I do think it’s a great achievement to reach 100 wins and it’s something I’m really proud of — but all the credit has to go to the players, while we also have to remember that you’re only as good as your next game.
“You get to enjoy your wins briefly in football, then you quickly switch your focus to the next game. The past is in the past, but it is a stat that makes me proud, especially to have achieved it in a relatively small number of total games played, and it gives me great encouragement that we’re on the right track.
TON-UP: AFC Totton boss Jimmy Ball has led The Stags to 101 victories in competitive matches in just 153 game since taking charge in March 2022.
Asked to pick out some of the more memorable of his century of victories, The Stags boss ponders for a solid minute before responding:
“There were a few results that came off the back of great performances during the promotion season that told me that the squad was ready to go up a division and really compete, which was subsequently confirmed with the 5-1 win at Bracknell Town, who were going very well at the time, and a really gritty 1-0 away win at Salisbury.
“Our 3-0 win at Gloucester City in the FA Cup, when Joe Oastler made his debut for us and Scott Rendell scored a hat-trick, was another one that proved we were capable of some really nice football against strong teams. And, although it didn’t turn out the way we wanted, I thought we were the better team in the Play-Off final defeat to Salisbury and were undone by a hand-ball decision that should never have been given — but it just goes to show how cruel football can be at times.
“We resolved to come back stronger this year and not to allow that disappointment to derail us, and that’s what we’ve done. I don’t think we’ve quite achieved the same level of performances, despite recently going 12 unbeaten in the league. We’ve tightened up defensively but have not been quite as prolific as I would like but it’s all about fine margins and little tweaks here and there, and while we’re looking for that special formula we are still getting results and maintaining the pressure at the top of the table.”
The manager admits, though, that the experience of narrowly missing out on the No.1 prize of promotion to Step 2 did prompt a change of approach for the 2024/25 season.
“Last season, we competed on all fronts and if you look at the games where we underperformed in the league, they often came straight after playing midweek games in the Hampshire Senior Cup and the Southampton Senior Cup. We lost at Chesham United, who were very strong last season, after playing AFC Bournemouth at home midweek, and then drew at home to Winchester City having played against Windsor United a few days beforehand.
“The introduction of an Under-23 team this season has enabled us to rotate the squad more than we were previously able, and that has allowed us to focus on competing in the three main competitions, although obviously things didn’t quite go to plan when we lost to Westbury United in the FA Cup. The value of the Under-23s is that it enables me to learn about a player’s strengths and weaknesses before I have to rely on them to produce in the first team, and we’ve seen with players like Luke Bennett that consistent performances will earn opportunities.”
Game No.154 sees Frome Town visit the Snows Stadium on Tuesday night (21 January), The Robins being the last team in the Southern League Premier Division South that The Stags have yet to face. The two sides went toe-to-toe in what proved to be Totton’s Step 4 title-winning season of 2022/23, and they also met in an FA Trophy tie at the Snows Stadium that Jimmy Ball’s men eventually won on penalties.
Frome had a difficult start to the season which still has them dwelling in the relegation zone, but recent results have shown a stark improvement, leading the Totton boss to warn his players against complacency.
“It will be tough. They’re a big team with several very tall, very strong players, so we’ll have to be prepared to compete with them. We’ll also need to find that attacking fluency that we’ve shown in flashes this season but struggled to maintain at the levels we’d like. Hopefully we can do it tonight and get win No.102.”
By Ben Rochey-Adams
Image courtesy of Harvey Gerring
