Men 3's bow out of Hant's cup to focus on the League

Andover 3's hosted Alton 3's in the Hants cup these teams had already met in an earlier league fixture and Andover knew this Alton side had been scoring goals for fun and were unbeaten this season. The game got off to a good start with both side have making early chances with Tom Lee going closes. At the other end Pete Lawrence controlled his defence well along with some fine stops from Jack Topliss in goal. Andover continued to hold there own and went in at half time goalless.

Second half Alton started strongly and put Andover under a lot of pressure but the defence with the introduction of Rob Eldridge held strong . It was not until about the 15th minute of the second period that Alton finally broke through with a one on one with the Andover keeper who possibly went to ground to early allowing the young Alton striker to go round him and score in the empty net. The response from Andover was excellent within 5 minutes Andover ripped through the Alton side with fantastic interchanges between Hodgson and Hemming which ended with Russ Hemming knocking another one off his Hockey bucket list with a reverse shot which forced the keeper to save but Fast and furious Tom aka Bruce Lee followed up to stroke the ball home. Taking his tally too four and ever closer to the golden Hockey stick (not Dragon)

The game continued with some more good end to end hockey with Andover showing some positive signs for the second half of the season. The Andover Midfielders kept there shape and controlled the centre of the pitch non more so than Matt Hodgson with his weaving runs and good ball distribution moving so fast his shorts were falling down.

Alton always looked dangerous but it was going to be Andover who scored next and the eventual winner when from a shot from the edge of D Gary Holmes stroked the ball into his own net, giving Alton a 2-1 Lead. After match analysis it was confirmed that Holmes had been distracted by how far Pete Lawrence had manged to pull his own shorts up to the point he thought Simon Cowell was playing for Andover.

This remained the final score with Andover showing they can compete with the best in their league and a good performance from all involved from the young and up and coming the old wise heads and the ones in the middle.

Thanks to you all have a good break and lets look to close the gap on the top in the New Year

M.o.M Matt Hodgson showed his class and kept his head and left the opponents sticks alone.