ANDOVER New Street continued their steady climb up the Hants Premier table after stretching their unbeaten run to nine games with last Saturday's 3-1 away win at Hythe & Dibden.

Street have played better and lost this season but in difficult playing conditions ran out deserved victors with two goals from leading scorer Nic Turpin and another from Jay Mann all in the second half.

"It was a good win," said Street assistant manager Graham Knight, "but we didn't play as well have we have in recent games. The pitch was a bit boggy but we defended well against the slope in a goal-less first half and were always confident that we would get the goals in the second half."

Hythe & Dibden had Street under pressure in the first half but, with Dave Tasker back between the posts and skipper Kevin Knight in defence after both missed the midweek win against Otterbourne in the Trophyman League Cup, Street almost completely dominated the second half.

They went ahead five minutes after the break when Turpin headed home from Antony Waters excellent cross and five minutes later Mann slotted his second goal in successive games in a goalmouth scrambles.

Turpin virtually sealed the points when he added his second goal of the game with 20 minutes left when he broke clear and rounded the 'keeper before slotting into an empty net.

The home side did pull a goal back five minutes from the end but was no more than a consolation against a Chickoland sponsored Street side who are now undefeated in the county league since 14 September.

Street's improvement over the past couple of months was further highlighted last week when the trio of Dave Dunn, Bobby Swayne and Nic Turpin was called up by the Hants FA for a representative side that beat Lymington Town 3-2 in a friendly as part of the warm-up for Hampshire's forthcoming Western Counties Championship campaign.

Kyle Swayne (15), the younger brother of Street's 18-year-old midfielder Bobby Swayne, has also gained representative honours with him scoring both goals for the Hants Under-16's when they lost 4-2 against Kent and was again on target with another goal when Hants beat Devon 3-0.

Striker Kyle, who has been playing for the Portsmouth School of Excellence, has also been selected to play for the Pompey's Under-18 XI in their FA Youth Cup match against Tottenham being played at Fratton Park.

Andover New Street (5-3-2): Tasker; Waters, Allen, Dunn, Keogh, Knight (capt); Richmond, Swayne, Vince; Mann, Turpin. Subs: Gilbert (for Waters 70 mins), McMillan (for Mann 80 mins).

lAndover NS Res were back in action in the JWL Combination for the first time in over three weeks last Saturday and it showed as they crashed 4-0 at home to Newport (IoW). "We were always off the pace and conceding two own goals didn't help," said Street Res boss Glen Butterfield.

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Stockbridge had another blank Saturday after their Hants Premier game at Amesbury was called off much to the chagrin of manager Barry Andrews. "It's pretty hopeless at the moment, it was the only game in the division to be called off, but we now had five or six washed out and it doesn't look as though it's going to get much better with all the rain we've had."

After the midweek Trophyman League Cup game with Poole was called off Andrews gave his players the rest of the week off instead of training and the 'Bridge boss is resigned to the fact that they will have a back log of fixtures as usual by the end of the season.

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Overton United went out the Trophyman League Cup in the third round when losing 4-2 away to lowly Hants Division Two rivals Hamble Club and Paul Chambers' side also lost two spot in the league table with Laverstock & Ford leap frogging them into pole position with a narrow 1-0 home win against Andy Hounslow and Brendan Spanswick's Ludgershall Sports. Therewere also no end to Broughton's problems as they lost 2-0 at home to Netley - Pete Fowle's village side once again falling behind to another goal from the penalty spot.