On Saturday Alton travelled to Aldershot Park to play Aldershot & Fleet and as often quoted by football pundits was very much a game of two distinct halves!

Alton kicked off into the teeth of heavy wind driven rain on a pitch with large pools of water forming on it.  Alton were dominant for the first thirty minutes, driving hard through their forwards, but continually giving away penalties when encamped in their opponents' 22 metre area. Finally, on thirty-five minutes they were awarded a penalty when Aldershot were caught offside; the home side disputed the decision and were marched back a further ten metres by the referee, bringing the posts within Simon Ford's range.  Ford brought up the first score with a somewhat "bendy" kick into the wind. The strength of the wind turned the kick sharp left immediately after crossing the bar! Within four minutes the scenario repeated itself when Alton were penalised and marched back 10 metres, but even with the gale behind him, the home kicker missed the target.

At half-time Alton's coach Steve Jenkins took his players back into the changing rooms, they re-emerged with clean shirts, hands, faces and a more positive attitude. Alton now had the prevailing weather behind them but the rain had now stopped and the wind had dropped and the pitch was by now a muddy morass.  However, this did not prevent Alton from taking the game to Aldershot with Ford kicking a penalty to touch on the 5 metre home line.  A clean catch and drive saw Luke Parratt score on his return from long term injury, 0 - 8.

Ten minutes into the half, Alton returned to the home red zone.  Aldershot were awarded a scrum on their own line and heeled the ball cleanly but chose to pass out rather than kick for touch. Ford was up quickly, intercepted a pass and raced a whole yard to touch down near the posts, he converted his own try to take the score to 0 - 15.

To Aldershot & Fleet's credit they did not give up but ran the ball at Alton at every opportunity although the final pass kept letting them down. Alton finally sealed the victory five minutes from time when flanker, Winston Carter, scampered across the face of the home defence, tipped the ball to centre, Stephen Johns, who straightened the move bringing in full back, Fran Williams. With a well-timed pass Williams released winger, Ed Dickinson, who demonstrated his speed to outpace the defence.  Although he did not touch down behind the posts Alton's "Man of the Match" Ford, kicked a fine conversion to take the final score to 0 - 22.

Referee - Damian Grosvenor

Rugby - An Inspiration!

Alton welcome Kingsclere RFC to Anstey Park for the first ever league fixture between these two clubs next Saturday, 14^th November, kick-off is at 2:30 p.m.