The Swans fell to an opening day defeat after a slow start that saw them two down to Sholing after 25 minutes on a punishing afternoon in the Thornhill Park heat. A Ben McLean strike pulled one back in the second half, but a third goal from the visitors saw them take the spoils on a blisteringly hot afternoon. 

Sholing’s first goal came in the fifth minute – Keeper Ryan Gosney launched a high clearance into the Slimbridge half, and Lee Wort held off Toby Lawrence’s challenge to latch onto the ball and loft it over Lewis Adams to put the visitors ahead. In a game of few chances it proved to be a significant strike. 

The Swans had yet to settle into a proper rhythym against their opponents, and Wort was again close on 13 minutes, with an effort that was just too high.

With Sholing bossing the first period, their lead was doubled on 25 minutes – Sami Makhloufi’s Free Kick being well converted by Dan Miller to put Sholing well in control of the match.

It took until just after the half hour for Slimbridge to have their first serious effort on goal, but Ben McLean’s effort from a free kick was wide, leaving the visitors sitting pretty at the break. 

The second half was a much more even encounter, as Slimbridge tried to get back into the game – although Wort was again unlucky seven minutes in with an effort that was well saved by Swans’ stopper Lewis Adams. 

Slimbridge began to create a few chances of their own, and were rewarded when Ethan Dunbar played in Ben McLean, who made some space for himself with some fancy footwork, before drilling the ball past Sholing Keeper Gosling to reduce the deficit. 

As the Swans pressed Sholing broke in the 76^th minute to put the game to bed – Dan Mason finishing off a neat move to restore the two goal advantage. 

With McLean and Joe Shutt both having good efforts thwarted before the final whistle, the visitors returned back to Hampshire with the points.

Manager Tom Speers offered a realistic assessment of the game at the final whistle – ‘We came out slow – quite a few of the boys haven’t played at this level, and that was wake up call. If you come out slow, make sloppy mistakes and don’t win your challenges or don’t cover – the first goal was a great strike – an unbelievable strike – but there were two or three things before that – you lose the first, you’re not covering properly, you’re going to get left behind. 

But after the half an hour mark, I think we were due our worth – I think they were worthy winners, as a team they had the better chances, but for an hour we actually gave them a game..

I try not to take the highs too high and the lows too low – this is not going to determine our season, but it’s a good wake up call for the boys. The last hour was a good basis to build on. 

What I said to them at half time was that we’ve had a whole pre-season of playing in a style and the way we want to play – for the first half an hour, some of them didn’t back themselves to play that, or just reverted to type. 

Once we started to play the way we’d actually been working on, we competed with them. I don’t even think that they went off the boil, we got better, we matched them – we didn’t match their workrate in the first half hour, and it’s a reminder that if you don’t match that, all of a sudden you’re 2-0 down – They will be up and about there at the send of the season, they’re a good club, they’ve got some good players, some really experienced players. So it was a good start, shame about the result, but we go again.’

Team: Adams, Geddes, Prictor, Turner, Lawrence, Ford, Mbunga (thmas 60), McLean, Hawes, Lewis (Dunbar 60), Shutt

Goals: McLean 67

Supporters Man of the Match; Joe Shutt