A warm late August evening saw me travel after work, to the edges of Wimborne, near Bournemouth, to see a Wessex League Division 1 clash between Verwood Town and Lymington Town.

The Potterne Park ground, home to Verwood Town, boasts floodlighting, covered seating and covered standing provision, as well as a tea hut and a good quality sound system. The clubhouse sits just outside the ground. There were 67 loud and proud fans in the ground tonight but it felt like more!

Verwood Town came into the game on the back of a good FA Vase win on Friday, against Totton & Eling. It was much needed as just two points from the opening 4 games had left Verwood needing to open their winning league account. Goals this season for joint managers Daniel Tabor and Darren Shepherd, have come from, George Richardson, Joe White, Sam Hockey, Jake Fletcher and Louis Baker (All 1 goal).

Lymington Town have yet to break the negativity of the 2023-24 season, when they were relegated from the Wessex League, Premier Division in bottom place. They have yet to secure a point this season and sit in bottom place again. Manager Ash Buckland, who was appointed in May, would have been looking to recent goalscorers, Hubert Cegielka (2 goals), William Lewis, Joseph Lovell, Alex Morris, Ben Morris and Kenneth Nwachukwu (All 1 goal) to fire them to some first league points tonight.

After a cagey opening third, where the length of the grass seemed to slow the passing ball, it was Verwood Town who finally broke the deadlock to go ahead, on 29 minutes. Lymington Town conceded an own goal from a corner, the ball striking Richard Sesay, as he attempted a clearance.

After absorbing a short period of Verwood Town pressure, in the 37th minute Lymington were back on level terms, when Joe Lovell placed an impressive low shot from 20 yards out, to make the score 1-1.

At half time the fixture could still have gone either way. The moisture in the evening air seemed to help the movement of the ball on the surface of the pitch and both teams looked to be stepping up their attacking play. It was always going to be a question of who really wanted the victory more in the second half.

Just four minutes after the restart Verwood Town retook the lead. A slip of concentration in Lymington Town’s defence allowed Joe White a simple close range finish at the near post, to put Verwood 2-1 ahead.

In the 62nd minute Lymington Town’s Hubert Cegielka lobbed the keeper when through on goal only to see the chance fall agonisingly inches wide of the far post. Verwood Town made the visitors pay for this failure when, with just six minutes left on the clock, they doubled their lead, making it 3-1, when eighteen year old Matthieu Grzybowski hit a fine shot from outside the area, beating the despairing dive of the Lymington keeper.

As the fulltime whistle blew it was the home team who took the 3-1 win, after a competitive game. Lymington Town will also take some comfort from how close they took this game but left still searching for their first point of the season after four games.