A Look Into Histories

A LOOK INTO HISTORY TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE

ORDNANCE SURVEY FC

Many will be very familiar with the success of AFC Stoneham, the 2025-26 Wessex League Champions and F A Vase winners with a magnificant home complex stadia but they have only been known since 2006 by the name reflecting their new home and, a year later having won the Hampshire Premier League, as AFC Stoneham. Before that, the club were known as Ordnance Survey FC.

Our Match Programme is for a Hampshire League Division Three game between Lymington Town and Ordnance Survey FC and priced 50p gave a brief history of the visitors and the League table as at December 12th 1998 showing the visitors to be in second place behind Clanfield and at the seasons end they were Runners Up and were promoted to Division One due to reorganisation. It would not be long, February 1999 in fact, before their home ground, the Civil Service Club closed its doors as it was financially unviable. Several years later it burnt down and eventually St Marks School was built on the site.

Ordnance Survey FC were founded in 1919 as Royal Engineers (Ordnance Survey Office) FC by soldiers returning from the First World War. They merged with a Post Office forming a new club, Southampton Civil Service when they moved into the Civil Service Ground in the mid twenties and were called the Mapmakers with the Royal Engineers having split from the side. They remained in Junior Football and simplified its name to Ordnance Survey in 1929. Sadly, in 1933/34 they dropped out of County Football for 64 years and just played Sunday Football from 1960 to 1966 before returning to Saturday football and in 1996/97 having won the Southampton Premier Championship brought them back to the County fold and the start of a brand new era culminating in the rise to glory of their 2026 achievements.