○Ringwood Town1–2Andover Town

Andover Town travelled down into the New Forest to play Ringwood Town who in the last few pre-Covid seasons, despite their current lowly league position, have always been a very obdurate and hard to beat side. Bright sunshine and a strong swirling wind greeted Town who kicked off towards the Forest end. The now familiar 3 4 3 formation was again employed and there was a very early booking for Andover’s Jake Watson after a fairly agricultural challenge.

In the 10th minute Andover opened the scoring with a really well crafted goal. A through ball enabled young Ryan Griffiths to run in behind and a fierce cross shot from the left edge of the penalty area nestled in the bottom right of the net with the Ringwood keeper well beaten. Griffiths is an excellent prospect, although very slight he is very rapid and the weekly competition he faces against usually pretty robust and pretty tall Division 1 centre backs is always good to watch. Andover were now dominating first half play and in the 20th minute Ben Emans made a great run into the penalty area and set up a glorious chance for Griffiths who sadly spooned it over the bar from 8 yards out when it looked easier to score. Griffiths was certainly seeing plenty of the ball and had another good chance to score in the 35th minute after a neat triangular passing movement. Unfortunately he was flagged offside, a close decision which VAR would have definitely checked and a fairly repetitive offside situation during the whole of the first half for Andover. Half time arrived after a very good 45 minutes for Town although they might well come to regret the several good scoring opportunities which they did not capitalize on.

The second half settled into a robust series of midfield exchanges and Ringwood certainly began to dominate play. Andover definitely needed a second goal to settle them down but that did not happen and it was no surprise that Ringwood equalized on the 59th minute when the ball broke to Ryan Hamm in the six yard box and he pushed the ball into the net through a crowd of players. After 62 minutes Connor Cullingford came on as a substitute to replace Brendan Ebireri and in the 77th minute Josh Bertie replaced David Gerrard. Good to see top scorer Bertie back on the field.In the closing minutes Andover searched for a winner but it looked increasingly likely that they would have to settle for a point. But in the last few seconds of time added on skipper Brendan Holmes broke into the right edge of the penalty area and superbly crashed the ball into the roof of the net from 25 yards. Cue unbridled joy for Andover but desperately difficult for Ringwood to take. Town knew just how they felt because exactly the same thing happened to them against Folland Sports a few weeks ago. Definitely the age old cliché of this being a game of two halves was very true and with a spirited second half performance Ringwood deserved a point.

The next match is next Tuesday March 15th at 7.45 at the Portway. This is an away fixture but is to be played at the Portway because Ash are having floodlight problems at their ground.