A warm January evening, after a spell of freezing cold weather, brought me to the MACRA Community Stadium, the home of Ringwood Town of the Wessex League Division One.

The MACRA stadium benefits from good clubhouse facilities, including bar and refreshment provision, as well as one covered grandstand and a decent grass pitch with modern floodlighting.

Tonight’s fixture for Ringwood Town saw them face off against Hamworthy United FC in a local derby. Ringwood Town, under manager Fran Mathers, came into the game in seventh place, with thirty seven points from twenty one matches. Hamworthy United were just ahead of the home side, with manager Dan Cann securing fourth place for his team, holding forty three points from twenty three games.

Goals have flowed for both sides with Hamworthy United relying on Bailey Rowe (23 goals) and George Deem (10 goals) this season.

For Ringwood Town, goals have been supplied by Lee Vint (20 goals), Albie Turner (7 goals) and Daniel Whitelaw (5 goals). One thing tonight’s game did not look to be, was short of goals… although I would later live to regret this prediction!

The first half proved that looks can be deceptive. Neither side really found their feet going forward and the game saw most action taking place in the middle of the field. Ringwood Town looked stronger in the first 25 minutes, with Hamworthy United finding some power through Neemo Nixon, on the right, to look the strongest upto the half time whistle.

The best chance of the half saw Hamworthy United float a free kick from outside the penalty area, narrowly over the Ringwood Town crossbar. At the break, with the scores tied at 0-0, there was still all to play for.

The second half played out in a very similar way to the first half. Despite the sides having plundered goals for fun earlier this season, neither attack tonight could find a way through. The closest chance of the second half being a well hit lob from distance which narrowly went wide sparing the blushes of Will Butler in the Hamworthy United goal.

At fulltime the points were shared. My first goalless game of 2025 had been quite a surprise given I had confidently predicted this game to be full of goals.