AFC TOTTON chairman Andy Straker has ruled out any possibility of joining forces with ailing neighbours Totton & Eling.

The two clubs sit side by side on the Little Testwood Farm site in Salisbury Road, Calmore, and both have been weighed down by financial difficulties since uprooting from their respective Testwood Park and Southern Gardens grounds in 2010/11.

But while Southern League outfit AFC Totton have put their money woes behind them since selling their Testwood Stadium home last summer, Totton & Eling are struggling to make ends meet at their council-owned Millers Park ground which, with no bar or social facilities, gives them no scope to raise funds.

Clouded Totton & Eling’s predicament has been further clouded by the ground’s owners, Totton & Eling Town Council, placing a notice in The Daily Echo wishing to hear from “persons who have an interest in tendering for a long-term lease of the football ground at Testwood, which has a football club as sitting tenants.”

Prior to Christmas, Totton & Eling chairman and co-team manager Andy Tipp expressed a personal view that the two Totton clubs would benefit from working together, possibly with the Millers becoming AFC Totton’s reserve team.

But that was given short shrift by Straker, who has made it abundantly clear that any merger with Totton & Eling is out of the question.

He said: “FA rules would not allow the two clubs to merge without dropping to the league of the lowest-placed club or for AFC Totton reserves to be called Totton & Eling.

“AFC Totton have come through some very difficult times recently but, after a lot of hard work, has now got itself on a sounder footing, and we will not jeopardise that.

“AFC Totton is a massive club which is a struggle to run in the division we’re in. If we were to go back into the Wessex, it would be beyond us to play in that league because we need to keep getting crowds in to pay the bills.

“We’re AFC Totton and we’re going to carry on that way.

“We’re not interested in becoming Totton United. I’ve spent the last two years trying to save this club and we’re not about undo all that.

“I wish Totton & Eling all the best, but they’re on their own – and they’re not going to be our reserves either.”

Straker says he and AFC Totton are still scarred by the events of two summers ago when, with the Stags in financial turmoil, Ed Holmes, then chairman of Totton & Eling, offered to take on their £185,000 debt and buy the freehold title of the Testwood Stadium for £1.

“There is still friction between the two clubs,” he confessed. “When we were in trouble all that talk of buying the ground for a pound cut very deep.

“But thankfully we’ve carried on and got ourselves into a decent position.

“I have no feelings for Totton & Eling and all the time I’m chairman of AFC Totton we won’t be merging.”

While win-less Totton & Eling are 13 points adrift at the foot of the Sydenhams Premier Division, the picture is much rosier over the other side of the fence.

Steve Riley’s Stags head for Larkhall tomorrow sitting tenth in the Evo-Stik Southern One South & West having strung together five straight victories.

They are just two points outside the play-off spots and Straker says that if the opportunity of promotion back to the Southern Premier does come along they would take it.