Gloucestershire County League Hardwicke 3 Sea Mills Park 1

HARDWICKE picked up three points in an eventful game against Sea Mills Park, the visitors finishing the game with eight men.

Hardwicke started brightly playing some neat football but after 15 minutes in their first attack Sea Mills midfielder Chriss Wells surprised the Hardwicke rearguard when he hit a shot from 25 yards that flew into an empty net.

The home side stuck to their task and equalised on 25 minutes when Craig Harris played the ball into the area and Rich James saw his header punched off the line by a defender.

The defender was shown the red card and James put away the penalty.

Six minutes later and Hardwicke took the lead when Dave Phillips played the ball down the left to Dennis Hylton who cut into the area past two defenders before drilling the ball low into the far corner of the goal.

Right on half time Mitch Fussell's team went 3-1 up. Phillips wriggled past two defenders and laid the ball back to James whose shot took a wicked deflection off a defender to leave the 'keeper helpless.

Sea Mills had two more players sent off. Kings Stanley 0 Thornbury Town 1

KING'S Stanley entertained Thornbury Town and put in a spirited performance for which they deserved at least a share of the points.

A heavy downpour just before kick off produced a lightning fast surface, which both teams found difficult to contend with.

The opening stages were evenly contested with neither keeper called into any serious action.

The only goal of the game came five minutes before the interval when a free-kick wide on the Stanley left flank was driven low and hard across the edge of the penalty area where some slack marking gave the Thornbury skipper, Mark Viner, the opportunity to strike the ball low past the left hand of the diving Martyn Pearce in the Stan ley goal.

Minutes later the Bluebells were unlucky not to draw parity when a looping shot from Nick Rieger struck the cross bar with the keeper well beaten.

The second period turned out to be a battle in midfield with neither side producing any clear cut chances and despite pushing their opponents on to the defensive in the closing stages, the Bluebells were unable to claim the goal that would have given them the point they deserved.

There is no doubt that Stanley missed the presence of Craig Hampson and Russell Tritton, both absent through suspension, although no one could fault the commitment of the team on the day.

Stanley are without a fixture next week as their scheduled opponents, AXA, are involved in a GFA Trophy preliminary round match against Bitton.

Taverners 5 Yate Town Reserves 2 TAVERNERS maintained their unbeaten start to the season with a Jekyll and Hyde performance against a youthful Yate side.

Within 15 minutes Tav's found themselves two goals down and in disarray. However, with 40 minutes gone, Tav's pulled a goal back with a tidy finish from the impressive Darren Peachey.

After the break Simon Blythe came on for his first run out of the season and did well but Andy Griffiths caught the eye, creating opportunities nearly everytime he touched the ball.

Player manager Mark Llewellyn scored the equaliser with an audacious lob from the edge of the box.

Further goals came from Peachey and Llewellyn made it 4-2 and Peachey scored again to complete his hat-trick.