Poole Town vs Evesham United – Match Preview

The opening weekend of the Premier League season was dominated by talk of the big clubs investing huge amounts of cash to find the number 9 who will score the goals to rocket them to the top of the table. Perhaps they should have looked closer to home, the 11 Southern League Premier South fixtures on Saturday produced an amazing 39 goals. Seven teams scored 3 or more with only Yate, Evesham and Chertsey failing to find the back of the net. The Dolphins were top scorers with 4, including a hat-trick from Shaq Gwengwe.

No team has managed to take maximum points from the opening three matches, Sholing, Taunton and Farnham lead the way with 7 points each.

Surely the game of the day was the magnificent 4-3 away win for the Dolphins at Bracknell Town. The points secured with Adam Parkes’ incredible last kick of the match penalty save. The game saw IK Hill score his first goal for the club and then an outstanding hat-trick for Shaq Gwengwe who signed for the club after the completion of his 3-year deal at Dorchester Town. In the early stages of his footballing career, Gwengwe played for the likes of Worthing, Blackfield & Langley and Andover Town and saw success with sides rising through the non-league pyramid. For the 2021/22 campaign, Gwengwe made the move to AFC Totton and scored 15 goals in 29 appearances in all competitions.

Following a strong season with the Stags, the striker signed for Dorchester and within his first season, he secured the club’s golden boot after finding the back of the net on 13 occasions. He went on to score 17 goals the following season which led to several clubs being interested in his signature for the start of the 2024/25 campaign, but he re-signed on at the Avenue. After scoring on ten occasions last season for Dorchester, Gwengwe has now decided it was time to move on and signed for Poole for the 2025/26 campaign and will wear the number nine shirt for the upcoming season.

Next up for the Dolphins is Evesham United at home on Saturday KO 3pm. This will be the first visit to Tatnam for The Robins who beat Malvern in the Southern League South play-offs in May. They finished runners-up to Yate Town with an impressive 82 points from their 42 matches. They maintained a very good away record winning 10 matches away from the Spiers & Hartwell Stadium, taking 35 away points in total. They made a solid start to the campaign by taking all three points at Weymouth on the opening day. Since then, they have drawn with Basingstoke Town and lost to Havant & Waterlooville on Saturday giving them four points.

The Worcestershire side are managed by Mike Ford who started his footballing career as a professional at Leicester City aged 18. Upon his release he briefly joined Devizes before a lengthy spell at Cardiff City. However, he spent the bulk of his playing career at Oxford Untied making 289 appearances for the club until he was forced to retire due to a back injury. He then turned to management and has spent time in charge of Oxford United, Oxford City, Banbury and now Evesham whom he joined in 2022. Whilst he was managing at Oxford United, he did make one come back appearance against Bristol City, but that was mainly due to an injury crisis at the club.

We of course can’t guarantee the level of excitement that we saw at Bracknell on Saturday but I do believe that we will see a fully committed performance from a team who are enjoying playing together and quickly learning how to get the best out of each other’s game. Joe & Pat however will not be pleased that we have conceded 7 goals in our last two games. They have already identified that crosses into the box are causing us too many problems, so we can expect to see some improvement in dealing with that situation. The pairing of IK Hill and Shaq Gwengwe is on a level that we have not seen at the Tatnam for quite some time.

Enjoy the game,

Neil Wellington.