Ryan Gosney

GOALKEEPER RYAN GOSNEY – who broke Stags’ hearts with his penalty-saving exploits for Salisbury in 2023/24’s Southern League Premier Division South Promotion Play-Off final at the Snows Stadium in May – joined AFC Totton on a permanent deal in November 2024.

Ryan was the No.1 at Folland Sports prior to joining Sholing in the summer of 2015 as a 24-year-old, via a short stint at Winchester City. During his nine-year spell with The Boatmen, he got his gloves on one Wessex Premier Division title trophy, one Wessex League Cup, one SDFA Southampton Senior Cup and two Russell-Cotes Cups, the most recent of which was won in the 2020/21 season.

The 33-year-old goalkeeper spent nine years with Sholing, racking up more than 400 appearances as a mainstay of veteran manager Dave Diaper’s team that followed AFC Totton in climbing up to Step 3 at the end of the 2022/23 season by winning the Southern League Division One South Play-Off final against Hamworthy United.

Ryan – whose older brother Mike was an AFC Totton legend for several years, operating as a goalscoring winger and was an integral part of the club’s famous run to the FA Vase final at Wembley Stadium in 2006/07 – was given the opportunity to trade a potential relegation dogfight with Sholing for a promotion battle when Salisbury manager Brian Dutton made an approach for his services in March 2024, and it proved to be the right move at the time, as Gosney produced a timely Man of the Match display to ensure The Whites went up to the National League South at Totton’s expense.

Having secured Step 2 football for Salisbury, Gosney was surprised to then be told shortly into the 2024/25 season that he needed to go out on loan to gain match sharpness, and he reluctantly agreed to a temporary move to Privett Park to keep goal for Gosport Borough.

But when Salisbury later told him they had signed another goalkeeper, he asked for his loan at Gosport to be terminated so he could also have his Salisbury contract cancelled to enable him to become a free agent.

Throughout his time at Sholing, Gosney was a constant thorn in the side of AFC Totton, not least during last season’s 0-1 away defeat for The Stags in February 2023, when a stellar display between the sticks somehow kept the more dominant team at bay to ensure that Bradley Targett’s 29th-minute strike remained the only goal of the game and Totton’s unbeaten run of 16 games came to an end. But, despite the intense rivalry between the two clubs, Gosney had no hesitation in agreeing to sign for AFC Totton when the chance arose.

He kept a clean sheet on his Stags debut in a 2-0 away win at Marlow in early-November 2024 but had to miss the next two games, due to being cup-tied in the Isuzu FA Trophy, before firmly establishing himself as AFC Totton’s No.1.