Walton To Face Basingstoke Town In Guaranteed Goal-Fest

By Frankie Boweren

The Swans travel to Basingstoke Town in the Isthmian South-Central League and is looking very likely to be a highly entertaining game to get people in the Christmas spirit before games continue Boxing Day.

The sides pair very closely in the league, with Walton sitting in second place (W11, L6) following their 6-0 dismantling of Guernsey and Basingstoke Town in fourth place (W10, D2, L4), being one point behind The Swans but having a game in hand over them.

Basingstoke did not play a game over the weekend as their match versus Southall was postponed due to the pitch failing its inspection, however, the game which was played prior was a marvellous 8-0 victory against Guernsey also.

This will be the first time the two sides meet this season on Saturday and could be very huge in terms of pushing through into January as both sides will want to keep their scoring form in-tact and would hate to see a loss.

Looking at the teams head-to-head, Walton & Hersham have picked up nine points out of a possible 15 in the last five games, (W3, L2) whereas Basingstoke Town are on a red-hot form, winning all five of their last five games, collecting all 15 points.

Whilst Basingstoke have the wins however, Walton & Hersham have the firepower, finding the net 41 times in 17 games, averaging The Swans 2.4 goals a game.

Basingstoke have had just as much success as Walton have however, netting 39 times in 16 different games, also giving them an average of 2.4 goals per game.

With both sides being very goal-orientated, there is bound to be goals however this does tide in Basingstoke’s favour, only conceding 17 times in 16 games, averaging merely over one goal a game.

Walton have let in 24 goals in their 17 games, allowing in an average of 1.4 goals a game, and make them the second worse team defensively out of the top 10 teams in their league, with the highest conceding team of those top 10 letting in only one more goal than them.

Basingstoke have also had a good few games with a lot of goals, with their best three results in the league so far all seeing over five goals, them being a 5-0 victory to Ashford Town (Middx), a 5-1 win against Merstham and finally once again the 8-0 v Guernsey.

It is clear that The Swans need to be very weary of this free-flowing team who like to score a lot of goals.

They’ll also have to be very weary of opposing striker Bradley Wilson who has managed to find the net 12 times this campaign so far, including 2 hat-tricks to make up those 12.

The game will be played at Basingstoke’s home ground The Winklebury Stadium on Saturday afternoon, on the basis that the snow this week doesn’t call for a game cancellation.