Armed with little more than shovels and determination, Ropley Football Club has transformed a pre-season crisis into one of its most successful years yet.

In 2025, Ropley Football Club’s pitch was not fit for purpose.

Having been damaged by drainage work and last summer's drought, the club was hit with a hurdle - they needed to fix the pitch.
With the help of club members, family and friends, and the parish council, they were able to get to work and get the pitch back to standard.

Ropley’s chairman, Ben Goodyear, spoke about how the commitment of the players shaped the beginning of their 2025/26.
He said: "The players came together, because we didn't have any machinery to put the sand out on the pitches, it was just shovels, wheelbarrows, and brushing in by hand.

"Without all the players coming together to be able to do that, they wouldn't have had a pitch to play on that side of Christmas."

By having the pitch completed by hand and having to manually put sand across it, they were back on in time for October.

Ben said: "We all came together and we seeded the pitch and put 60 tons of sand over the two pitches by hand.

"And with a bit of fairer weather and some really good recovery, we were back playing on the pitches at the start of October this year."

The club has two teams, a veterans' side in the 5th division and a 50s side in the 8th division.

Ropley 50s finished 6th in their division; however, their veterans' side season was nothing short of remarkable and unprecedented.

With win after win, they secured two league cups and the league title, winning their division (5th division) and claiming promotion to Division 4 of the Farnham & District Sunday Football League.

Unfortunately, the team fell short at the Hampshire County Cup finals last month, finishing runners-up.

But with a treble-winning season behind them, they hosted a presentation night to honour players who stood out throughout the season and the team’s achievements.