AFC Totton
Tickets available now HERE
📢 Tickets already purchased for the originally scheduled game on Saturday are fully transferable and will be accepted on Tuesday night.
🏆 Isuzu FA Trophy, First Round Proper
🆚 MerthyrTownFC
📅 31 Oct - Kick-off at 7:45pm
🏟️ Snows Stadium
🎟️ https://afctotton.ticketco.events/uk/en
AFTER SATURDAY AFTERNOON’S WASHOUT, the Isuzu FA Trophy First Round Proper tie at home to Merthyr Town will now take place this Tuesday night (31 October) kicking-off at 7:45pm.
AFC Totton met The Martyrs in Third Round Qualifying in the same competition in early-October last year, when Scott Rendell’s second-minute penalty made the difference between the two sides.
Let’s take this opportunity to get a bit more familiar with our upcoming visitors (and hope that the rain currently pouring down outside my window as I type this on Sunday evening will have abated by two days’ time)…
THE BASICS
Although originally founded in 1908 as Merthyr Town Football Club, the current Merthyr Town FC was formed as a phoenix club arising from the ashes of Merthyr Tydfil AFC following its liquidation in 2010.
Located in South Wales, about 23 miles to the north of Cardiff, The Martyrs play at the 4,000-capacity Penydarren Park. The site is known to have once been a Roman military encampment, before it became part of the Penydarren House estate during the industrial revolution.
MERTHYR TYDFIL AFC
Merthyr Tydfil stole the imaginations of football fans all over the UK when they competed in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1987, beating Italian club Atalanta 2-1 in their first round, first leg tie at Penydarren Park before losing the return in Italy 0-2 and going out on aggregate.
They won the Southern Football League Premier Division (in its various iterations) six times between 1947 and 1989, as well as the Southern League Division One Midland Championship in 1987/88, the Southern League Western Division in 2002/03, plus three Welsh Cups and three Welsh Football League Cups.
Historically, the club’s biggest rivals were Gloucester City, who Totton knocked out of this season’s Emirates FA Cup with a 3-0 away win at the Second Round Qualifying stage in mid-September.
MERTHYR TOWN FC
The Martyrs celebrated their reformation by winning the Western Football League Division One in 2010/11, making it back-to-back titles by lifting the Premier Division trophy the following year. In 2014/15, they won the Southern League Division One South & West. They added the Southern League Cup to their trophy haul in 2015/16, beating Cambridge City 5-1 and 2-0 in the two-legged Final, for a 7-1 aggregate success.
Last season, Merthyr Town finished 9th in the 22-team Southern League Premier Division South table. Their record after 42 games read Won 18, Drew 6, Lost 18. They scored 73 goals and conceded 64, finishing on 60 points – some 19 points off Chesham United in the last of the Promotion Play-Off slots.
They began the current 2023/24 season in fine form, winning all of their opening six league games and whacking Yate Town, now of the Southern League Division One South, 5-1 in First Round Qualifying for the Emirates FA Cup. Consecutive league defeats to Chesham, Gosport Borough and Didcot Town brought them back down to earth, and despite overcoming Taunton Town in FA Cup Second Round Qualifying after a replay, Sheppey United ended The Martyrs’ involvement with a 1-4 defeat. In Third Round Qualifying for the Isuzu FA Trophy, Merthyr Town beat Dorchester Town 3-1 at home on Saturday 07 October.
NOTABLE MERTHYR TOWN PLAYERS
Several of The Martyrs’ squad have experience of playing in the Football League and the higher echelons of the non-league game. Defender Ismail Yakubu made close to 400 EFL appearances during spells with Barnet, AFC Wimbledon, Newport County and Cambridge United. Capped at England C level, he joined Merthyr Town in 2021.
Former Bristol City U23s forward Ricardo Rees was an ever-present for The Martyrs last season, contributing 21 goals and winning the Fans’ Player of the Year award. He joined Merthyr from Yate Town in the summer of 2022.
35-year-old striker Lewis Powell has made a career out of being a thorn in the side of AFC Totton, helping himself to goals and the odd hat-trick against The Stags over the years for the likes of Mangotsfield Town, Chippenham Town and Larkhall Athletic. He was mercifully left on the bench when Totton went to Penydarren Park last season, as he completed his recovery from long-term injury, and it appears that he is currently out on loan with Cinderford Town in a deal that is due to last until the end of June 2024 – so, he will miss this cup tie, too.
PAST MEETINGS: AFC TOTTON vs MERTHYR TOWN
Tuesday night’s re-arranged cup tie will be the seventh meeting between The Stags and The Martyrs. The Welshmen have slightly the upper hand in the head-to-head comparison with three wins to Totton’s two, but Jimmy Ball’s men will be looking to put the record straight in front of their own fans at the Snows Stadium.
Prior to the FA Trophy game in Wales last season, Totton’s only other win against Merthyr Town was a 3-2 home success in front of 539 fans in a 2012/13 FA Cup Third Round Qualifying tie courtesy of goals from Jonathan Davies, Richard Gillespie and Dave Allen. The Martyrs won 4-0 in the first league encounter between the two sides in the 2014/15 season, and triumphed 5-1 in the return at Totton in March 2015.
There are no replays in the Isuzu FA Trophy; if the result is level at the end of 90 minutes, the tie will go directly to a penalty shoot-out. But, irrespective of the result on Tuesday night, these two sides are due to meet again when Totton return to South Wales for the first of two meetings in the Southern League Premier Division South for 2023/24. The weather should be a bit brighter the next time Merthyr come to the Snows Stadium on the penultimate weekend of the season on Saturday 20 April, when both clubs may yet still have a lot to play for.
CAN I BUY TICKETS?
Yes – tickets will be available at the gate on the night. But you can save money by purchasing your ticket(s) online in advance. If you already have a ticket that you purchased for the originally scheduled match on Saturday, it is still valid and will be accepted.
By Ben Rochey-Adams and Malcolm Tombs (Club Historian)
