Wins for Diamonds and Men's II

ANDOVER Ladies travelled for their first round match in the National Over-35 Masters Cup.

The side is made up of a mixture of current first, second and third XI players and others dragged out of retirement for the competition.

They therefore took a while to adjust to each other and were put under early pressure, but at half-time the score was still 0-0.

Andover settled and Jac West, Liz Hacker and Hannah Cowley worked tirelessly to feed Emma Boswell, Debbie Young, Paula Wiseman and Patsy Hunt, but despite a couple of short corners it was still goalless at full-time.

A tense penalty shoot-out was convincingly won by the effortless well-placed flicks of West, Hunt, Cowley and Young, earning a trip to Taunton Vale in the next round.

Andover Diamonds 4 Salisbury Strollers 1

ANDOVER Diamonds faced Salisbury Strollers but at the back of their mind was their cup game against Reading 24 hours later.

They got off to the best of starts when after five minutes John Priestley-Cooper broke down the right and found Richard Hoo who scored.

After that Diamonds seemed to relax and Strollers pulled level four minutes later and the rest of the first half followed the same pattern.

In the second half Diamonds plodded on and were rewarded midway through the half when Aubrey Smith gave them the lead and a few minutes later following a penalty corner a shot by Smith and a save by the Strollers keeper Priestley- Cooper pounced to steal the Diamonds’ third. Ten minutes from time Priestley-Cooper scored his second and the Diamonds’ fourth to keep them chasing what had been in the past an elusive promotion position.

Andover Diamonds 1 Reading 11 (Over 40’s Vets Cup)

THIS was always going to be the Diamonds’ cup final against a club with a prolific and successful history at every level.

Diamonds were well supported and it was not long after the start that Reading opened the scoring following the breakdown of a Diamonds’ attack.

The remainder of the half saw Reading put their indelible stamp on the game and score five more putting the game well out the Diamonds’ reach.

The second half saw much of the same but the Diamonds never gave up and they gave it their all and at times they caused the visitors to lose their cool slightly.

At one time the umpires had to call a time-out for both captains to talk to their players, before Reading scored a further five in the half bringing their total to 11, but Diamonds scored when Alan Shaw stretched the keeper who saved it and the loose ball was pounced on by Richard Hoo.

Gillingham II 6 Andover III 1

A VERY youthful thirds demonstrated excellent ability and never let up on the home team. Silly errors, often caused by inexperience, led to Gillingham flooding the attack and creating opportunities. Some good saves by Steve Payne kept the score down but he could not stop four from going in before half-time. Gillingham were not to have it all their own way as a cross from Liam Kavanagh allowed Tom Lee to add to his total for the season. The second half saw Gillingham score two goals at the start but Andover had the better possession, with captain Matt Hodgson and man of the match Jordan Morris continually feeding the ball and stopping attacks, but with Gillingham flooding their end of the pitch Andover struggled to get through and were denied a number of opportunities.

Andover II 4 Fareham IV 1

LOOKING to build on a hard fought win from the previous weekend Andover II brought on the pain right from the outset pressing Fareham firmly into their own half.

The return of captain Guy Sleeman- Hiscock and a man of the match performance from Ashlea Payne kicked the Andover midfield up a gear enjoying the lion’s share of possession early on. Any attack was easily soaked up and redistributed into the midfield at pace, at times through some rather flashy skill from Jackson and Priestly-Cooper.

The hard work in the midfield was well rewarded after some quick passing moves saw Daley and Allen both smash home. The third came from Mark Frost as he danced around the entire Fareham defence.

The second half saw Fareham drop into damage limitation mode and their keeper put in some fantastic saves but nothing was stopping a determined short corner from the Andover captain. At 4-0 down Fareham found a rare hole in the Andover defence before the final whistle.

The win retains Andover’s three point lead at the top of the table and they travel to Alton tomorrow with heads held high.