Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, has the Boatmen in his sights ahead of a trip to the South Coast.
Frome Town kick-off a huge November on Saturday when they venture to the Mortgage
Decisions Stadium, home of old adversaries Sholing.
They are exactly one third of the way through their league programme and a month of
fixtures against mid table sides or lower gives them a golden opportunity of improving their
lowly league position.
Tuesday’s comprehensive Premier Cup victory at Brislington was the ideal way to blood new
recruit Archie Ferris who obliged with a goal on debut and enables the squad to travel to
Sholing in a more positive frame of mind.
The Boatmen, although lying comfortably in tenth, went through October without a victory
and have won just two of their six home league games so far.
They joined the Southern League at the same time as The Robins, some fifteen years ago,
and made the play-offs in each of their first three campaigns, but failed to win promotion in
any of them (and we all fondly remember the 2011 final..!).
After subsequent yo-yoing from the Wessex League, they finally achieved Step Three status the season before last, fourth time lucky in the play-offs and finished fifteenth in Premier Division South last term.
Southern League encounters with Sholing:
Season Division Home Away
2009-10 One S&W D 2 – 2 L 0 – 3
2010-11 One S&W W 1 – 0 L 1 – 2
Play-off Final W 1 - 0
2019-20 One South W 1 – 0 D 0 – 0
2020-21 One South Covid
2021-22 One South W 3 – 2 W 1 – 0
2022-23 One South L 2 – 3 L 2 – 3
Until Albie Hopkins’ sweetly-struck free kick into the top corner at Brislington, the Scarlet
Runners had gone just over nine hours of playing time without a goal away from Badgers Hill
and now the drought is over, hopefully they have enough firepower to sink The Boatmen.
The latest information on ticketing according to the Sholing website is as follows:
General Admission Prices:
Adult: £12
65 and over: £8
Disabled: £8
13 - 19 year olds: £5
Under 12's : Free when accompanied by an Adult
Contactless Card Payments accepted.
Turnstiles open an hour and a half before kick-off.
Dogs are allowed as long as they are kept on a lead and owner stays with them at all times (and clears up after them!).
Listen to the latest episode of the Dodge The Question podcast!
This week we talk about Wimpy, Wendy's and Dave Beasant before hearing Harrison's views on the Merthyr & Brislington games.
You can also listen on Frome.FM radio every Friday at 5pm (repeated on Saturday 3pm)
Secure your entry to all of our games at Badgers Hill on the Fanbase app and website!
Certainly an opportunity here? Sholing have gone 5 without a win and are conceding plenty of goals in the process.. Prior to this bad run they had their best performance of the season in putting 5 past Havant & Waterlooville. Even though they lost 4-0 at Chertsey last time out - apparently they had just as many chances as the home side and the Chertsey stopper brought off some 'worldies!' They also hope to have one or two injured players back for this one.
Hopefully we'll get something here. Like us, Sholing have lost all their games against the top tier sides, so I foresee a close game at the ridiculously named ' Mortgage Decisions Stadium.'
G