HAMWORTHY UNITED 2 GOSPORT BOROUGH 1
Pre-Season Friendly (Saturday 18-07-09)
For the second time in a week the Hammers faced stiff opposition from a team from Division One of the Southern League South & West. This time in the shape of Gasport Borough, managed by Alex Pike the man who took Hamworthy up into the Wessex League following their promotion from the Dorset Premier League at the start of the 2004/5 season. United were without one or two of their last year regulars due to holidays etc. These included Club Captain Ollie Cherrett, and last season’s Player of the Year Max Crow, but saw the return of others including Karl Yelland and Richard McCabe who both missed the Andover game. New signing Adam Tong played a full game in goal replacing the injured Steve Shergold, and did his chances of pushing for a first team place no harm whatsoever.
Both sides started the game well playing some good passing football. Gosport probably had just having the edge in the opening exchanges. Following a series of corners that were defended well, the Hammers gradually began to take the play deeper into Borough territory. Hamworthy opened up the scoring in the eighteenth minute when they were gifted a penalty. Warren Byerley with his back to goal was needlessly bundled to the ground. He picked himself up, and converted from the spot with a low shot into the corner of the net. Play remained fairly even for the remainder of the half with both defences on top, the mid field was evenly matched, and goal chances were few and far between.
HT 1-0
Both sides as expected made changes after the break. It took Gosport less than two minutes of the second half to draw level. The Sothern League side took full advantage of a rare United defensive error to go on and score passed the helpless Adam Tong, who was given no chance. Borough gradually got on top, and now looked more dangerous than at any point of the game. All this was to come to nothing however when they fell behind to a somewhat bizarre goal. The Gosport Keeper who had just replaced Nick Hutchings remained injured on the ground after the ball was half cleared. Play continued, and Ryan Dovell ran through, and found the corner of an unguarded net to give the Hammers the lead after sixty three minutes. Hutchings returned to the field, but Gosport were never given the opportunity to salvage anything from the game by a good all round display by the Home team.