Silchester win the Hampshire Saturday Vase Cup for first time

In the opening 10 minutes both teams committed some good old-fashioned crunching tackles tempered with nice one-touch football. It was one of these tackles that lead to the first goal on 12 minutes. Silchester’s Stephen Burgess won the ball in midfield, laid a lovely through pass that split the Bournemouth defence and Connor Stratton raced to the ball. He glided past the last man but was clipped on his ankle; instead of going down he steadied himself, went one-on-one with Bournemouth’s keeper and slotted a shot into the bottom corner, 1-0 to Silchester. All credit to the referee for waving play on to capitalise on the advantage. 

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Silchester didn't let Bournemouth settle and, with Connor Stratton and Ashley Ledger pulling the midfield strings, plus the lightning pace of Merson Webb on the wing, Silchester caused Bournemouth problems. On 21 minutes Webb raced down the wing, beat two players and crossed to Trent Barrington, who shot just wide. Stratton and Ledger continued to feed Barrington who set up Burgess to score from 10 yards 2-0 on 27 minutes.  

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Bournemouth piled forward but the Silchester defence held firm, backed up by the outstanding Jack O’Grady’s keeping. On the cusp of half-time Bournemouth forced several corners but O’Grady made one point-blank save and safely tipped over another fierce shot. 

The second half started with more tough tackling. On 58 minutes Webb was fouled on the wing. Webb picked himself up and floated a perfect free kick to the far post where Tallentine bullet-headed in for 3-0.

Ledger made it 4-0 on 78 minutes and man of the match Stratton finished the contest 5-0 with 10 minutes to go, the first time in the club’s 105-year history that they have won this cup.