Sholing
The club
Sholing Football Club, nicknamed the Boatmen, are a non-League club from Sholing, Southampton, Hampshire, England. The club is not Southampton Football Club, and it is not Thornycrofts (Woolston) or Woolston Works, which Wikipedia describes as earlier clubs; Vosper Thornycroft, VT FC and VTFC are former names of this same club. Wikipedia gives a founding year of 1960, as Thornycrofts (Woolston), with Woolston Works teams having competed from 1878. The club became Vosper Thornycroft in 1970, VT FC in 2003 and Sholing in June 2010.
The home ground is given as The Charters Stadium, Portsmouth Road, Southampton, on the club's own site, and the Wikipedia infobox agrees, although the body of the Wikipedia article uses a sponsor name, The Mortgage Decisions Stadium. The infobox capacity is 2,500. The club's playing colours were not established from the sources read here. Ross White is listed as manager on Wikipedia, with Paul Doswell as Director of Football; Dave Diaper left in October 2023 after 25 years and 1,210 matches. The club's own site was not read for a manager's name, so White still being in charge was not independently confirmed.
Recent seasons
Wikipedia lists Sholing 17th in the Southern League in 2014-15, then in the Wessex League Premier Division as runners-up in 2015-16, third in 2016-17 and third in 2017-18, and champions in 2018-19. They were promoted to the Southern League Premier Division in 2022-23 after a play-off win over Hamworthy United. They finished 11th in 2024-25 and sixth of 22 in 2025-26, missing the play-offs. The same article's club records section gives a best league finish of 15th in 2023-24, which conflicts with the 11th place stated for 2024-25 and was not resolved here.
Honours and landmarks
FA Vase winners in 2013-14, beating West Auckland Town at Wembley. Wessex League Premier Division champions in 2013-14 and 2018-19. Hampshire Premier League champions in 2000-01 and 2003-04. Wessex League Cup winners in 2004-05 and 2016-17. Southampton Senior Cup winners eight times, most recently 2016-17. Hampshire Senior Cup runners-up in 2008-09, 2010-11 and 2014-15. Russell Cotes Cup winners in 2019-20 and 2020-21. A 3G pitch was installed in summer 2025 and, according to Wikipedia, the board took the freehold of the stadium in 2026.
Notable scorelines
In the 1919-20 FA Cup the predecessor club drew 0-0 with Burnley and lost the replay 0-5. Sholing lost 3-0 to Gosport Borough in the 2015 Hampshire Senior Cup final. Wikipedia lists the first round in 2026-27 as the club's best FA Cup performance. The club's record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.
European record
None. Sholing have never played in a European competition, as far as the sources read here show.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026-27 season)
Sholing play in the Southern League Premier Division South, the seventh tier (Step 3). The club's own site, read on 6 November 2026, showed them 13th with 16 points from 13 games, with four wins, four draws and five defeats, 18 goals scored and 20 conceded. They beat Totton and Eling 8-0 in the Southampton Senior Cup on Tuesday 3 November, and a home win over Malvern Town, with two goals from Jahiem Dotse, was reported. Joey Jones joined as player-coach early in the season, and the club signed Thabo Kuaho permanently from Walton and Hersham.
Wikipedia gives the first round of the 2026-27 FA Cup as Sholing's best FA Cup performance, which implies they reached the first round proper, and the same article gives first round in the FA Trophy as a best performance for 2026-27. The club site's front page, however, listed the next FA Cup match as away to Salisbury on Saturday 7 November at 15:00, at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium, and made no mention of a tie with Altrincham. A search found no confirmation of any Sholing against Altrincham fixture. Who Sholing face in the first round proper, and whether the Salisbury listing is a cup tie of another kind, was not established from the sources read here. Their results in the earlier qualifying rounds were not established either.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholing_F.C. https://www.sholingfc.co.uk
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.