BRICKIES HIT THE ROAD - TO RAILWAY COUNTRY - THIS WEEKEND

THE Brickies are on their travels again this weekend with a trip up the M3 - and across to the right a bit at Winchester - for a date with Alresford Town. You might know New Alresford better as a beautiful riverside village (or small town) with some interesting, if slightly expensive, local shops and restaurants - and of course that lovely old steam railway Watercress Line to Alton and back (if you haven’t done the spectacular floodlit Christmas Special ride it’s a must, especially if you have kids)! Enough tourist info - Alresford also has a very capable football team, in the doldrums a bit recently, but plenty good enough to give a hectic workout to the table-topping Brickies. Alresford sit exactly mid-table in Wessex Division One with 11 points from 10 games - but they’ve had some decent results (apart from losing 3-1 at home to Lymo!!) The Black and White-striped Magpies started the season well enough, beating Blandford 3-2 before a 2-2 away draw at Hedge End and a 1-1 at home to Kintbury. Alresford then lost 2-1 at home to Newport before bouncing back with a 3-1 win at Whitchurch and 1-0 defeat of Aldermaston. Since then, slightly pear-shaped progress. That Lymo horror show followed a 2-1 loss at Romsey. Since then, downhill all the way, with a 4-1 loss at Ash, a 2-1 home loss to Hedge End, and in midweek this week a 6-2 home loss to Aldershot Town in the Hampshire Senior Cup. That one can’t be taken as a form guide, however, because the Shots would wipe out most teams at this level in a similar way. The club's consolation for losing that was to register their record crowd at Alrebury Park of 603. Alresford will surely be determined to bounce back - and when better to do so than against the league leaders? So no chickens - or the local river ducks - to be counted, and definitely try not to run out of steam in railway country! Whatever the result, New Milton will have a week off to re-group, because Tuesday’s scheduled away trip to Newport has been postponed because the Islanders have trouble with their floodlights.