Headley United3–1Andover Town

After two postponements because of frozen pitches Town made the relatively long journey down to Headley near Bordon in the 4th round of the Hampshire Saturday Trophy. Predicting cup results is never easy but on paper Andover should progress in this competition since Headley are near the foot of Hampshire County League Division 1 which is one step lower than the Hampshire Premier.

Town were missing Ryan Morgans and kicked off playing against a bitterly cold easterly wind. Both started quite well and after 15 minutes or so there was nothing between the two sides and it would not be apparent which team were in the Premier League. The first goal came from the home side in the 23rd minute when a lovely ball was played through to the left winger who advanced into the penalty area and beat keeper Redshaw with a well placed shot. Pretty soon afterwards things got worse when Town unnecessarily gave away a penalty which was easily converted to make the score 2-0 to the home side in the 32nd minute. The first half progressed without Town ever looking likely to score and indeed their performance was pretty lacklustre. Half-time score Headley United 2 Andover Town 0.

Hopefully manager Bertie told the team exactly what they had to in the second half and they did just that with a goal in the 48th minute. Luke Holden fastened on to a through ball and fired home from the edge of the area. Exactly the start to the second half which Town needed and from then on they got more and more into the game and Headley were increasingly on the back foot. As the game entered the final quarter it seemed just a matter of time before Town levelled the score but however hard they pushed they just couldn’t find the back of the net. And then with pretty much everyone up front the inevitable happened, Headley broke away and scored in the 89th minute to make the final score 3-1.

So a bitterly disappointing result and exit from the cup. This was certainly a game of the proverbial two halves and Town were very unlucky not to level the tie and move on to penalties. The next match is on Saturday January 24th at home at 2.00pm to league leaders Colden Common. Andover have not now won in the league since the end of November and really need to get back to winning ways if they are to push for promotion this season.