ANDOVER'S best way of stopping goal-mad Winchester City is to avoid getting the opposition's backs up tomorrow.

Gosport Borough learned that the hard way on Tuesday when a chance comment in the Portsmouth press gave the wounded Winchester lads all the motivation they needed to go out and thump them 6-1.

It was Borough's assistant manager Gary Lee who inadvertantly dropped the clanger when discussing City goal phenomenom Andy Forbes, whose hat-trick against Gosport hoisted his season's tally to a remarkable 58.

In the offending article, Lee said: "Winchester are a different side without Forbes, so if we can stop him there's no reason we can't get a result."

In City's eyes, that amount-ed to the ultimate three-word insult - one-man team.

Winchester's Pompey-based boss Neil Hards said: "None of the lads had seen the story, so I brought it in and popped it up on the dressing-room wall before the match.

"The comment really did upset the players - in fact, they were livid about it, because we're certainly not a one-man team.

"It wasn't just one or two of them who were annoyed, it was all of them, and we went out there to prove a point.

"Forbes's goals are vital to us, there's no doubt about it, but Gosport were so busy worrying about him that they forgot all about Ian Mancey, who got a hat-trick himself!

"We're on fire at the moment and it's not just the strikers who deserve credit.

"They've got to have a supply line and Shaun Dyke's doing fantastically. We've also got Danny Smith, Liam Green and Lloyd Webber, who are all creative players.

"They're flying - we all are. We can't wait for the next game to come along."

When City last played Andover, Forbes bagged five goals in a 9-3 drubbing at the Denplan City Ground, but Hards is reading nothing into that result.

The Boxing Day match was overshadowed by a serious injury to veteran Lions midfielder Allan Kennedy, who is unlikely to play again after breaking his leg.

Hards said: "The result was irrelevant that day.

"Football takes second place when you get an injury like that and it's not going to be another 9-3 tomorrow.

"Like us, Andover are going well in the FA Vase and they won't roll over and let us dictate.

"If we get the chance to bring some fresh legs on and rest a few for the Vase game at Wroxham next week, we will do, but I don't anticipate that happening.

"It's going to be a tight, tough game."

Talking of Wroxham, Hards made the long trip to East Anglia to see them last Saturday - and ended up watching Vase favourites AFC Sudbury instead!

Having spent nearly four hours on the 220-mile trek to Mildenhall, he arrived to discover the match had been postponed half-an-hour earlier.

Determined not to waste the journey, he watched Soham Town beat Sudbury 1-0 and observed: "I probably caught Sudbury on a bad day, but there was nothing there to worry us at all.

"If that's the best they've got to offer, we should have no problems. If we keep working hard, we can have a good shout at this."