At the end of a positive season where the Yellows finished runners up they entered the Mid Solent summer league! This was a very competitive tournament which contained 7 teams and it started in July with the league games! Fareham Vikings finished 1st, Crofton Saints Tigers finished 2nd and Gosport Borough Yellows finished 3rd gaining 8 points. Fareham Vikings are a good team who won all of their summer league games scoring plenty of goals along the way! They beat Fleurs Admirals 4-3, Paulsgrove Reds 6-1, Crofton Saints Tigers 5-1 and also beat the Yellows 3-0. Things didn’t go the Yellows way on that occasion but they knew they would give Vikings a better game in better circumstances! At the summer league finals day Gosport Yellows met Fareham Vikings in the Division 1 final. Yellows were missing Sebastian Cooper and Robbie Robson through injury and absence. Both played important parts in getting the Yellows to the final. Yellows also had two new players in Harrison Openshaw and Junior Davies who both had super debuts. The game started well and it was a very tight affair with both teams trying to take control of the game! Yellows captain Aiden Hamper was organising the team and along side Harry Spencer and Oscar Kirkham the defence looked strong and difficult for Vikings to break down! Yellows were trying to push forward with some excellent wing play from Kieran Richardson and the awareness from Joshua Hamper to keep trying to find space behind Vikings defence was first class! The first goal of the game came after 15 mins when some good vision from Alfie Penton played Michael Iwuagwu in down the right hand side. Michael beat the defender and then chipped the ball over the out coming goalkeeper into the far corner!…..1-0 Yellows!! The second half started in the same way as the first! But some fine defensive work from Harry Spencer, Oscar Kirkham and Harrison Openshaw allowed the Yellows to push forward for a second goal. This eventually came with another assist from Alfie Penton who picked up the ball on the edge of the Vikings box and played a nice weighted pass to Rumen Tsvetanovi who stroked the ball into the top corner at the first time of asking!……2-0 Yellows!! As you would expect the last 20 minutes remained tight and Vikings were causing Yellows a few more problems than they did in the first half but with some good forward running from Joshua Hamper and Junior Davies showing a good presence up front, Yellows remained organised and hard to break down. This was also helped by a ‘Man of the match’ performance by Yellows goalkeeper Toby Palmer who was not only able to keep a clean sheet against a free scoring Vikings team but showed leadership when needed and he was also able to control the tempo of the Yellows game perfectly! Eventually the final whistle came and Yellows had upset the odds by beating Fareham Vikings and winning the Summer league! But more importantly they had won their first winners trophy! The trophy was presented to Yellows captain Aiden Hamper and along with vice captain Toby Palmer they lifted the trophy to joyful scenes!!! Manager Anthony Penton & Assistant Manager Paul Cooper couldn’t of been prouder of everyone’s effort and application! It goes to show that all the hard work does pay off! This was a great tournament and the Yellows would like to wish everyone good luck for the new season!
