JAMIE COLEMAN

THE MANAGER

Good evening and a warm welcome to Foxcotte Park to all our supporters for tonight’s game against our visitor’s Amesbury Town.

I’d like to welcome Jack Vallis & Glyn Cherrett, their staff, players and all officials and supporters who have made the journey to Andover this evening. Amesbury are a club, who have suffered over the past few seasons. Following their promotion to the Wessex Premier, they struggled during the covid period and were unfortunately relegated last season.

After picking up an opening day draw at East Cowes and following it up with a 30 win over Verwood Town, the Town have suffered heavy defeats at Downton, Millbrook and Newport IOW.

We come into the game having gathered momentum recently with recent wins over Ash United and last Saturday’s win over Romsey Town. We have picked 11 points from the opening 15 points available so far this season.

I thought the North Hants tie against Andover Town last Tuesday was a real good advert for the Wessex League. Apart from a brief spell halfway through the first half, my team were magnificent, and so were you in the stands. We were all let down by some poor decisions during that 20-minute period in the first half but showed great character to come from behind and show the attacking prowess we have as we grew stronger in the second half.

The momentum followed us down to Romsey again where we were again resilient coming from behind twice. I was so proud of the team because you must be strong when you go behind, and we had a game changer in Cooky, and we took our chances as they arrived.

Please give it everything you’ve got from stands. We’ve had plenty to cheer in recent years and we all feed off each other here, which I know we will be doing again tonight as we set about making Foxcotte Park a fortress it usually is.

Enjoy the game.

APART FROM A BRIEF SPELL HALFWAY THROUGH THE FIRST HALF, MY TEAM WERE MAGNIFICE NT, AND SO WERE YOU IN THE STANDS.