Gav can Spur Royals towards their promotion dream
Gav Spurway is the new boss of Wessex League Premier Division club AFC Portchester.
He steps up from the position of assistant manager he has held since following Dave Carter from Moneyfields in February 2021.
Carter is taking up a new position as head of football operations at the On-site Group Stadium after overseeing a couple of promotion near misses.
“It is a great honour to be named as AFC Portchester’s new manager and I’m looking forward to getting to work on planning for the new campaign over the close season,” he told the Royals’ website.
“There’s a lot of work ahead if we want to go a step further in 2024-25 and achieve our goal of promotion.
“This is a fantastic club and there are so many positive things happening.
“Everything is in place for AFC Portchester to go higher up the non league pyramid system – but as we have seen over the last two seasons that doesn’t guarantee you success so we need to put in the hard work.”
Spurway was a player under Carter at both Horndean and Moneyfields, prior to being appointed a coach and later assistant manager at Dover Road.
Portchy finished seventh in Carter’s first season in charge, 2021/22, before going mightily close to promotion 12 months later.
The Royals won 30 of their 38 Premier fixtures in 2022/23 - but could still only manage fourth place despite Brett Pitman’s 44 league goals.
This season Portchy finished fourth, losing a play-off semi-final 1-0 at Shaftesbury - Pitman netting the match-winning penalty.
Carter said: “We have moved the playing side of the club forwards over the last three years – we have been one of the contenders for promotion in both of the last two seasons and I expect that to continue.
“It’s been frustrating that we haven’t got over the line in terms of promotion but we have taken some massive strides forward on the pitch and the foundations are there for Gav to build on and take things forward to the next level.”
This is a fantastic club and there are so many positive things happening