History
In just over half a century AFC Portchester have grown from their humble beginnings as a Sunday League team to Step 4 of the non-league pyramid system and having a thriving ladies and youth section of 40 teams.
In April 1971, Lloyds Sports was formed and played in the City of Portsmouth Sunday League Division 6 under the guiding hand of Bob AR Sansbury. The club’s name was changed to Colour vision Rangers in 1973.
The name was changed again three years later to Wicor Mill after Bob retired and Colin Brans took over as secretary. The club won various honours in the Saturday and Sunday local leagues and by the 1986-87 season Wicor Mill FC was the largest pub club in Hampshire, running seven teams in total.
The club had long harboured ambitions to climb up through the leagues to higher levels and ahead of the 1998-99 season Portchester were accepted into the Hampshire League and joined Division 3. They went on to win successive promotions to Hampshire Division 1, becoming champions in 2001-02.
A further name change followed in 2000 and the club was known as AFC Portchester for the first time. The season of 2002-03 brought the merger of AFC Portchester with youth football set up Castle Royals.
Portchester became members of the Wessex League in 2004 and they gained promotion to the Premier Division in 2012 after finishing runners-up in Division 1 under manager Glen Bridgeman. The club tried to climb up from Step 5 of the non league pyramid system for 13 years before they finally gained promotion in 2025.
Their best Premier Division finish before winning promotion was third place in 2014-15 under manager Graham Rix. Portchester missed out on automatic promotion under boss Dave Carter in 2022-23 with a heartbreaking final night of the season defeat which saw them slip from second to fourth place. They finished in the same position the following season only to lose at the semi finals stage of the Promotion Play-offs.
However, an early sign of the silverware and success about to come arrived in the final of the Hampshire Senior Cup at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, where the Royals won the prestigious county trophy for the first time thanks to a penalty shoot-out victory over AFC Totton.
The season 2024-25 will forever be written in Portchester folklore. Gav Spurway’s side not only won the Wessex Premier Division and promotion to Step 4 football, they also completed an unprecedented quadruple – adding the Wessex League Cup, Russell Cotes Cup and Portsmouth Senior Cup to their title win.
The Royals had the best points per game record of over 1,000 clubs in England, from the Premier League through the top ten levels of the game, and they lost only once during their league campaign.
AFC Portchester made their debut in the FA Vase in 2010, and first appeared in the FA Cup the following year. Their furthest run to date in the FA Cup has been to the Second Qualifying Round stage, which they have done four times. In the FA Vase the Royals have reached the Third Round stage on two occasions.
In 2011 AFC Portchester was proud to be awarded the Queens’s Award for Voluntary Service – the MBE for groups and a measure of the club’s important standing in the local community.
The OnSite Group Stadium is one of the finest non-league facilities on the south coast – the site has been transformed from a section of open playing field when the club moved there in the mid-2000s into a ground which now boasts multiple covered terracing and seated stands and four function suites.
The ladies section of the club has rapidly expanded in recent years and thanks to a number of recent promotions the first team has climbed to Tier 5 of the women’s football pyramid in England.
The club’s thriving youth section is one of the biggest in Hampshire and it gives boys and girls the chance to enjoy and play football from the ages groups of under-sevens up to under-18s.
The future looks bright for AFC Portchester as the club makes its Step 4 debut in the Isthmian League South Central Division in the 2025-26 season – and there are plenty of exciting future plans in the pipeline both on and off the pitch.
Club Honours
MEN’S FIRST TEAM
Hampshire Senior Cup Winners – 2023-24. Runners-up – 2024-25
Wessex League Premier Division Winners – 2024-25
Wessex League Premier Division Promotion Play Off Semi Finalists – 2023-24
Wessex League Division 1 Runners-up – 2011-12
Wessex League Cup Winners – 2014-15, 2017-18, 2024-25. Runners-up – 2023-24
Wessex League Charity Cup Winners – 2023-24
Russell Cotes Cup Winners – 2013-14, 2016-17, 2024-25
Portsmouth Senior Cup Winners – 2024-25. Runners-up – 2017-18
Hampshire League Division 2 Runners-up – 1999-2000. Division 1 Winners – 2001-02
Portsmouth and District League Runners-up – 1997-98
RESERVES
Hampshire Intermediate Cup Winners – 2011-12
Wyvern League Premier Division Winners – 2014-15, 2015-16
Wyvern League East Division Runners-up – 2011-12
LADIES FIRST TEAM
Southern Region Women’s League Division 1 South Winners – 2023-24
Hampshire County Women’s League Division 3 Winners – 2015-16, 2020-21. Division 2 Runners-up –
2016-17, 2021-22. Division 1 Winners – 2022-23
Hampshire County Women’s League Invitation Cup Winners – 2021-22
Hampshire FA Women’s Junior Cup Winners – 2015-16
Hampshire FA Women’s Trophy Winners – 2021-22
PDFA Women’s Senior Cup Runners-up – 2023-24, 2024-25
RESERVES
Hampshire County Women’s League Division 2 Winners – 2024-25
DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Hampshire County Women’s League Division 6 Winners – 2024-25
