Hamble 3rd XI 3, Alton 1st XI 5

Alton picked a valuable three points on Saturday with their second win of the season – a hard-fought 5-3 victory on the road against Hamble.

The East Hampshire side started the game brightly, keeping possession well and moving the ball around quickly and making it hard for Hamble to get any time on the ball.

And it wasn’t long before Alton opened the scoring with youngster Max Lowes, on his first-team debut, setting up Charlie Gibbons whose strike from the top of the circle was to much for the Hamble goalkeeper to handle.

Leading 1-0, Alton continued to show that they meant business as they had several more counter attacks, which were denied by some good defensive play by Hamble.

But not long before half time Alton increased their lead with Alec Hudson robbing a Hamble defender and getting a shot off which was saved by the keeper, but the Alton forward picked up his own rebound and buried it into the net off his reverse stick to put Alton 2-0 up at half time.

Alton were well aware that Hamble were far from beaten, and the visitors kept silly mistakes out of their game in the early minutes of the second half.

And they were rewarded with a third goal as a beautifully-worked team goal ended with Gibbons slotting the ball through the Hamble circle to Liam Cave at the back post for a tap in.

Despite being down by three goals, Hamble were pushing hard to attack Alton, and the home side duly pulled a goal back soon after with a penalty corner drag flick squeezing just under the right hand of Lawrence Jones in the Alton net to make it 3-1.

Again Alton came back at the home side with some brilliant team passing play which saw Brogan Fife set up Hamish Hudson who scored Alton’s fourth with a superb deflection that rivalled his older brother’s earlier goal.

Yet again though, despite Alton seeming to be dominating play, Hamble again cut the gap to two goals with another penalty corner goal breaching Alton’s defence, making it 4-2.

As time started to run down Alton picked up their fifth goal with another superb bit of team work, with Fife and Gibbons linking up superbly down the right side of the pitch before ending with Gibbons flicking the ball home past the Hamble keeper to make it 5-2.

In the final five minutes Hamble clawed another goal from a penalty corner but it was too little too late as Alton saw out time to collect the three points.

On Saturday, Alton return to Eggar’s School looking for their first home win of the season in Hampshire 2 when lowly Isle of Wight come to town.