Godalming Town Football Club has had an excellent 2025/26 season and, under the managership of Mo Sher, the team has won the Southern Combination League Division One. This is at the tenth level of English football and the club will now be promoted to a league at the ninth level.
The current club was founded in 1950 by ex-pupils of Godalming Grammar School and was initially known as Godalming United. Between 1992/93 and 2004/05 it was known as Godalming & Guildford and it is from this era that the nickname, the Gs, originates.
The club’s most successful period was between 2006/07 and 2016/17 with spells in both the Isthmian League and the Southern League at the eighth level of English football. During this time, the Gs reached the fourth, and final, qualifying, round of the FA Cup, just one round from the entry of clubs from the English Football League. But, in October 2011, Maidenhead United were the winners at Wey Court in Farncombe. The attendance was 703 and gate receipts exceeded £3,000. The Surrey Senior Cup was won in 2009/10 and 2012/13, the victims on both occasions being Sutton United (just eight seasons later Sutton United would be promoted to the English Football League).
Of course, football has been played in Farncombe and Godalming for many years before the current club’s formation. The earliest recorded game is for ‘A Grand Football Match’ played at the Godalming Recreation Ground in April 1887 between Godalming and Charterhouse School (which had relocated from London to Godalming in 1872). The school was triumphant by 2-0. There were frequent matches between ‘town and gown’ in the late Victorian/Edwardian era. After a match in 1894, the school commented that the town team seemed “to forget that they were not playing amongst themselves but against gentlemen”!
Two of the greatest sporting polymaths of the time, C B Fry and G O Smith, both England internationals and with connections to Charterhouse School, played matched for Godalming.
Farncombe Football Club’s first-ever match in the FA Amateur Cup took place in 1906 when the opponents were the Royal Engineers, who had been FA Cup winners in 1875. The British Army team won 4-1.
In May 1912, Godalming defeated Farncombe 3-1 in a Titanic Relief Fund Match. (RMS Titanic had sunk in April). It was reported that, due to the rainy conditions, there was a small attendance but “between £2 and £3 was raised” (equivalent to c. £300 and c. £440 today).
Jeff Brooks has written a book titled ‘A History of Godalming Town Football Club and a Look at Football in Farncombe and Godalming before 1950’ to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the current club’s formation. Cover price is £10. The book is available at the ground on matchdays or by post – details at brooksjeff18@aol.com.
