Former Mid-Solent Leage champions Harvest bidding for first Hampshire Premier League silverware

Harvest will extend their unbeaten run to 17 league and cup games if they can claim the first silverware of their Hampshire Premier League history.
By Simon Carter
Published 12th May 2022, 12:49 BST
Harvest (blue) in action during their HPL Supplementary Cup semi-final win at Andover New Street Swifts. Picture: Ian Grainger.Harvest (blue) in action during their HPL Supplementary Cup semi-final win at Andover New Street Swifts. Picture: Ian Grainger.
Harvest (blue) in action during their HPL Supplementary Cup semi-final win at Andover New Street Swifts. Picture: Ian Grainger.

Steve Harris’ men travel to Winchester City FC on Saturday (11am) to take on Hook in the HPL’s L4 Teamwear Supplementary Cup final.

The former Mid-Solent League champions will start as favourites - Harvest finished runners-up in the HPL Division 1 South East table while Hook were fourth in Division 1 North.

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Harvest have already beaten Division 1 North champions Andover New Street Swifts and runners-up Whitehall & Bordon in the end-of-season tournament.

But Hook did beat Harvest’s divisional rivals Whiteley Wanderers - who drew twice with Harvest this season - en route to the final.

‘We’ll be favourites, there’s no denying that,’ said Harvest boss Steve Harris. ‘But people probably said Andover were favourites to beat us in the semi.

‘We know nothing about Hook’s players, just that their results are chalk and cheese - they can batter teams or be battered.

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‘I’ve told the players, I don’t care about who we’re playing. So long as we turn up mentally right, if we play as we can at our level we can beat anyone, and that’s not being big-headed.’

Harris is without left back Churchill Chia-Titor - who didn’t play in the semi either - but other than that are at full strength.

Harvest are waiting to hear from the HPL whether second place in Division 1 SE is good enough to see them promoted.

Saturday’s final comes exactly two months to the day since Harvest clinched runners-up spot with a late 2-1 win against Meon Milton in their final league game.

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‘It’s a waiting game (to hear about promotion),’ said Harris. ‘It would feel even longer if we didn’t have this cup final.

‘We got knocked out of three cups in November - we let ourselves down, we lost all the games fairly. So when this cup was brought in, we wanted to go for it. Our league season ended in March - I’d have been bored by now!’

Harvest have won 13 and drawn three of their 16 league and cup games since losing a cup tie to Headley on November 20. And one of their draws was a 3-3 stalemate against HPL Division 1 champs QK Southampton after they had led 3-1.