Dayers on a Roll, but Seconds Found Wanting

Several matches were called off due to the recent heavy rain but on Sunday, Dayers Fine Foods found the Preston Candover pitch had drained sufficiently to stage their Hampshire Sunday Intermediate Cup second round tie against Red Lion from Aldershot, writes Tony Spencer. Dayers dished it out, taking every one of their gold-plated chances in the first course, three goals ahead without reply by the break. Matt Talmage opened the scoring with a header from a corner kick, George Lagden laid on the second and Dave Lee the third, so it looked like the home side were going to turn the Hampshire Cup into a hog roast. The opposition however were a more than useful team and, undaunted by the first half searing, they put the home side through the mincer in the second half, forcing the home side to concede five goals without adding to their original tally. The result was 3-5 to Red Lion (Aldershot).

Most of the postponed matches have been rescheduled for next week.

Lamb Inn travelled down to Southampton for their tie against Division 1 side Titans, finding the home side too strong to handle on their own domain and going down 4-1, Lamb’s slaughter being their first defeat so far this season.

Kaiser Wessex were forced to scratch from their tie, allowing City of Portsmouth Division 1 side Meon Tayz a walkover passage into the third round.

New Inn returned from their Hampshire Sunday Junior A Cup second round tie with their tails between their legs following a comprehensive 4-0 defeat against Boyatt Wood Wanderers from Eastleigh, who play in the City of Southampton League Division 2.

Bridgemary Eagles of the Gosport Fareham & Solent League, who are unbeaten so far this season, were due to play Chineham Athletic, but it appears that all the other games in that area were postponed.

Republic of Chineham travelled to Arms Athletic of Andover, who lie third in Division 1, and returned triumphant, following a 0-2 win in the Basingstoke Kelvin Cup, their second clean sheet of the season.

Basingstoke Saints played host to Andover side AFC Wolversdene. They staged a good close game which was level 2-2 at full time and only settled in in the opposition’s favour during extra time. The away side scored twice in the first additional half, which left Saints too big a mountain to climb to salvage the fixture. David Gibson converted a penalty, to complete a magnificent personal hat-trick. so Saints lost the match 3-4, a game they felt deserved a better result, which has been a reoccurring pattern of their season to date. The scoring went 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2, full-time, 2-3, 2-4 and 3-4 at the end.

Tron saw off Oakley’s challenge 3-0, in the only all-Basingstoke tie, with their goals coming from Giani Thomas, Michael Moray and Josh Stewart. This was their second comfortable win of Oakley this campaign.

In the Bernard Cornish Cup, Division 3 side Eastrop Eagles suffered their first home defeat in a monumental struggle against the so-far-unbeaten Division 2 side FC Everest. The underdogs took the match all the way to a nail-bitingly tense 5-6 finish. The home side scorers were Bobbie Frost with two strikes, one a header at the back post, Paul Adams, who smartly chipped the keeper, Nathan Bennis and a direct free kick from Wes Bush. The visitors narrow triumph took their winning run to six victories on the trot.

Hampshire Irons opened the scoring after about eleven minutes in their match, but after that initial setback the game was dictated by the visitors, North Warnborough Two. Jamie Simmonds opened their account with a very good goal, Ryan Thorpe added the next two, so by half-time the scoreline was 1-3. In the second half rattled Irons completely fell apart as Pete Keens, and Trevor Rogers netted, with Thorpe’s conversion from the penalty spot completing his hat-trick. Peter Hodgeson exploited a breakaway to take the score to 1-7, and Thorpe grabbed his fourth goal as icing on this personal cake just before the full time whistle, 1-8 the final score.

Ritchie Bone scored the only goal for DG Athletic as they went down 1-6 to Soldiers Return Reserves. The first half was rather one-sided with Connor Izzo opening the scoring with a volley from 18 yards out, Josh Buckingham doubling the lead with a half-volley from a corner kick, Izzo added his second and Arek Beszireta netted with a header from a corner, giving a half-time score of 0-4. There followed a more even period of play as the visitors took their foot off the throttle. However, Joe Allnutt and Jake Allnutt added further to the Soldiers, tally, before DG Athletic’s solitary reply.