26 years had passed since United had won a trophy and now, for the second time within a month, they were poised to end the barron spell. Following the unexpected, inexplicable defeat at the hands of Milton Keynes City in the Berks & Bucks Senior Cup Final at Chesham two weeks earlier, United had weathered a storm of two successive league defeats to power their way to the top of the league by taking 9 points from the last possible 10. Ahead of Dorchester on goal difference with both sides having just one game left to play, United had only to duplicate the westcountrymen's result to finish at the top of the pack.
Things could hardly have been tighter. On the last day of the season, United were at home to fourth placed Gosport, never an easy team to beat, but Dorchester were entertaining Dartford, lying third, who themselves desperately needed to win to be certain of preserving their position, and thus of being promoted to the Alliance. The excitement generated by the recent run in to the last day of the campaign had reached fever pitch as United's largest crowd for a league match for almost a quarter of a century packed into the stadium, creating an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension, fired with hopefuly expectancy.
Tension there may have been on the terraces, but there was no sign of it on the pitch when the game began, as a green and white wave tore into the massed blue ranks from the south coast almost as soon as the first whistle sounded. Near delirium was the safety valve that blew all the pressure away after just 3 minutes when Dave Parratt rose unchallenged at the near post to flick Peter Mead's right wing corner high into the roof of the net. Nobody could quite believe it. Not this time the frustrations of Chesham, where no one had been able to hit the target. United had got the perfect start.
3 minutes later, it was two. That irrepressible handful Gary Harthill had wriggled his way into the area, the linesman had spotted an infringement and the referee had awarded a penalty. Jones slammed the ball past Milne and United fans began celebrating the coming of the championship.
Gosport interrupted the party 4 minutes later though, a Coulbert header from close range beating Mazurek to bring everyone back down to earth, but still United pressed forward unremittingly and before half time should have restored a two goal advantage when Nash hit the bar from all of a yard!
After the break, though, things went horribly wrong. Within a minute of the restart Mahoney had flicked home Williams' corner to tie things up, and then soon after Lowran latched onto a clearance, chipped over Mazurek and, incredibly, Gosport were in front. With 15 minutes left Harthill coolly equalised from close in and then in the last quarter of an hour O'Reilly hit the bar and Nash miskicked in front of an open goal, misses that didn't seem to matter until word was received from Dorchester, where they had kicked off earlier, that Dartford had been defeated with the last kick of the game - United needed to win!
The end came oh, so quickly and the players trooped off dejectedly in a stunned silence as most of the 1500 crowd seemed to pack into the clubhouse for an emotional salute to the players who had come so close to being heroes. For the fourth time in the space of just one season, United had been labelled runners up.
