...WE’RE IN THE MONEYS AS WELL

WHILE Farnham Town celebrate their 22-game winning run, just down the A3 Moneyfields are on 19 victories in a row themselves.

The Wessex Premier side have already scored more goals than they managed for the whole of last season but still aren’t top of the table just yet.

Glenn Turnbull’s team were third ahead of the weekend, albeit having played four games fewer than AFC Stoneham, who sit at the summit, with five points between the two sides.

“We’ve worked really hard on looking at the stats and evaluating where we were in the summer and set ourselves some goals to score a certain amount on average per game and then concede a certain amount per game and we’re on track with that,” Turnbull told The NLP.

“We take it one game at a time, we keep ourselves grounded. I don’t necessarily want to tempt fate, looking at the form and where we’re going, promotion should be our aspiration.”

Perhaps the most impressive feat of the team is that they have done all of this without playing a game at home all season because of ground redevelopment.

“We haven’t played a game at our home since March, 23, 2022,” Turnbull added. “We’re currently in a ground share with Chichester City but over the past few years we’ve played games at Portchester, Fareham, United Services and a majority at Havant & Waterlooville.

“We’ve been training there (home stadium) for 2-3 months now but it’s just a lot of ground grading stuff that is holding it up.”

Moneyfields were relegated from the Southern League Division One South back in 2021 due to financial reasons but are eyeing a return.

“The costs of running a Southern League side were unsustainable with the revenue coming in, so the club took voluntary relegation as a decision”, Turnbull said.

“When the manager there previously left to go to Portchester he took 99 per cent of his team. So when I came in, not only had they just been relegated from the Southern League, but they had no players, other than one, Steve Hutchings, who was the club stalwart.

“I think we’ve got to a position now where we’ve got quite a small group of players but everyone knows their place, knows their role and the effort that we’ve put in over the three years on coaching, building and development is coming together.”