Matchday 1 Brockenhurst 0 Petersfield Town 3

29 July 2025

So, last few days of July, second week of the school holidays – and it’s time for the season to start already!  Crazy huh?  The phoney, jeopardy / intensity-free weeks of preseason already behind us, lights out: 2025/26 is go.  The Badgers will surely not be the only team to face a sightly fragmented August, with three different cup competitions alongside the league games not to mention the inevitable sporadic absence of players for holidays and the like (or in Corey’s case, a wedding – congratulations to him!). 

A buzz of excitement, 234 in attendance ready for the new campaign despite the incessant rain (how ironic, given it’s barely rained for two months!), a team broadly recognisable from last year but with a couple of good additions… it took ten minutes for that bubble of optimism to burst for the evening.  By that time, Petersfield had already taken the lead when a free kick wasn’t properly cleared and Dan Wood was given the freedom of the penalty area to turn and shoot into the corner on 5 minutes; and two minutes later, what appeared to be a serious knee injury to Mitch Speechley-Price.  The challenge looked innocuous but the player was evidently in immediate distress and had to be stretchered off.  Two serious injuries in two successive games; a horrible start to any season.  That subdued the crowd, and it also seemed to subdue the team, perhaps not surprisingly; the visitors started to dominate, took control of the match and never looked back.

So let’s give due credit to Petersfield: organised at the back (their defence barely missed a header all game), intelligent and incisive passing, quick on the break and, most importantly, playing with a level of intensity that Brock were nowhere close to matching.  The Rams went into every challenge with intent – not over the top, but determined – they picked up almost every second ball, and their midfield was largely in complete control as Brock struggled to make any inroads.  Even so, most of their early shots were from range and caused no alarms.  The Badgers did create half-chances too, Luke Gray with a chip into the box which Birmingham just managed to clear, and a sharp move with Brooks finding Woodward, but his shot was straight at keeper Grant.  Kian Towse, all pace for the Rams, a constant threat on the break: once superbly tracked by Keegan Kelly, once brilliantly saved by Valero after Macfarlane misjudged a header… Still only a narrow lead, then, but the second goal, just before half-time, always looked likely to be decisive.  Batley lost possession tamely in his left-back position, a simple pass across the box and Harrison Cable chipped into the top corner (did he actually mean to chip it, or was that a mishit which luckily went in?) with the defence scrambling to get back.  HT 0-2

There is honestly, little to say about the second half. Petersfield were better in all departments, quicker to everything, looking dangerous every time they went forward.  They only added one goal, on 63 minutes, when Towse shot across goal from the right-hand side of the area and the ball somehow went through a crowd of players and in at the far post; but there could have been others, and Macfarlane made one excellent block on the goalline after some pinball in the box.   Walker did have an early header which looped to Grant in goal, and Gray hit a long-range swerving shot in injury time which the keeper only parried but by that time the game was long gone.  The Badgers made a slew of changes around the hour mark and to be honest I wasn’t really sure what formation they were playing towards the end of the game as everything became a bit ragged on both sides.  But the result wasn’t in doubt.  FT 0-3

Not the way we had planned to start the season… the team which had looked so positive against Binfield and Poole nowhere to be seen.  Of course there are reasons, and the injury to Mitch – pray God it’s not too bad – really didn’t help.  There were times when it looked as though Brock were still in their preseason mentality, Petersfield were so much sharper.  Against this, there’s still a batch of players missing – Tyler, Dylan, Harry, Jack, Rian and now of course Kieran and Mitch; and some of those who are fit have holidays coming up, so August may not be overly kind to us.  Early days, a chance to put everything right at Moneys on Saturday…