Reply With QuoteHoping to be there, it's a ten min drive from my house!
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For those of you who are bored to tears of speculation about takeovers,land deals,unpaid and missing money and Alan Hardy in general.
Here is some actual football information on our first league opponents Eastleigh FC on 3rd August.
This will be the first meeting of the two teams in competitive football,Eastleigh are managed by former lower league journeyman Ben Strevens who took over full time in November 2018 after a couple of caretaker stints following the departure of Andy Hessenthaler.
Strevens took over a struggling team that were averaging just over a point a game for the first third of the season and completely turned around their season which saw them ending up on 74 points but strangely their seasons goal difference was -1.
Nicknamed the Spitfires Eastleigh play their home games at Ten acres which has a capacity of just over 5000 with around half of the capacity seated.
This season will be Eastleighs 6th season in the National league having won the Conference south in 2013/14 since promotion they have finished 4th,7th,15th,14th and last season 7th they lost in the playoff semi final to Salford on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
Last seasons top goalscorer Paul McCallum also the conference national top scorer with 27 goals moved to Solihull Moors on 1st of July.
Transfers in over the summer include Scott Rendell 32 (ST) from aldershot,Jack Payne 27 (CM) from Ebbsfleet and Joe Partington 29 (CM) from Bristol Rovers.
Players out include James constable,Paul Mcallum,Oscar Gobern,Mark Yeates and Josh Hare.
They appear to have a balanced playing squad but only currently have one right back in Partington, the average age of their first team squad is 29.4 years.
Notable names in their squad are Reda Johnson 31 at left back who played for Coventry and Sheffield Wednesday ,33 year old ex Chelsea trainee Danny Hollands who has played for Portsmouth,Bournemouth and Crewe and recent signing from rivals Aldershot Scott Rendell.
Having Spent a bit of time looking at their unofficial fan forum they appear to be happy with how their club is being run and are optimistic about their chances this season with no one really getting over excited or making predictions, they have seen some of their better players from last season move on but are happy enough with the replacements that have been drafted in, one notable post about the fixture list
'doesn't look as if the Notts Co game will be chosen for TV. Might be good to play them early, given the mess they're in, and their lack of recruitment. Their fans are not optimistic on the forum. '
which I think is fair!!
If anyone else has any info they want to add or spots any mistakes feel free to add to the thread,there are a lot of new clubs for us to get our heads around this season
Absolutely no takeover talk on this thread please!!!
Last edited by bridpie78; 10-07-2019 at 03:05 PM.
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Hoping to be there, it's a ten min drive from my house!
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I watched a few of their games on bt sport last season, defender Réda Johnson is an absolute gem in this division, he is exactly what Notts need !
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Doesn't seem to be a great deal of parking in the area of the ground so advice from any Eastleigh fan reading this would be welcome.
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Agree we'd love to have a player like him,hes former championship with Sheff Wed and he's a beast probably could do a job at L2 levelOriginally Posted by HAPPYMAGPIEHAPPY
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Looking forward to spending a weekend in Portsmouth. Let's hope we take enough fans to takeover their ground.
ps. Thought I would leave all the takeover talk to the experts. Oops.
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I saw them on TV in their play off semi final and they looked really good for a National League side. Their style of football was attractive too. I don’t know whether the departure of McCallum will have weakened them significantly - I suppose this depends on the quality of his replacement(s) - but they look like being tough opponents for the first day.
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Thanks Bridpie 👍
Strangely I'm rather excited about this season, not expecting much really but I'm looking forward to playing new teams and meeting some proper old skool football people.
It'll bring us back down to earth nicely if we havent landed already!
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Off the subject a bit but apparently Charie McParland has had a heart attack!!!
I'm sure we all wish him a speedy recovery.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NickyH4WK...22243122192384
Last edited by countygump; 10-07-2019 at 04:12 PM.
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I've been living near Eastleigh for well over twenty years, and in most seasons will see them once or twice. They used to provide Southampton with a pre-season game every year. This year their final pre-season before playing us is against Saints U-23s.
Their ascent to their current level was orchestrated under the excellent chairmanship of Stewart Donald. When he jumped ship to take on Sunderland I thought Eastleigh may slide back down again. As Bridpie mentioned, they did have a wobble in the first half of last season, but they seem to have got over it.
I'm not an Eastleigh fan as such, although obviously I like to see them doing well on the odd occasion I watch them (except this 3rd August obviously). Maybe that explains why I've never heard of their base being called Ten Acres, despite what Wikipedia may say. There's no mention of that name on their website (which seems hard to Google for - eastleighfc.com): they refer - as I would expect - to the Silverlake Stadium, which is what you'll see at the ground and on all the signs leading to it.
BMPie is right - there's very little parking so when clubs like ours with a proper following turn up, it's a bit of a problem. I'll try to come up with some suggestions. It takes me 35-40 minutes to walk to their ground, so I'll definitely be on foot on 3rd August. Really looking forward to the opening game, and desperately hoping that all our pessimism proves unjustified.
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