Winchester City went into Saturday's F A Trophy tie with Swindon Supermarine having seen their last seven F A Trophy campaigns ended by former champions of the Hellenic League with Thame United (twice), Slimbridge, Kidlington, Highworth Town, Swindon Supermarine and Hungerford Town the teams to end their cup dreams so when they were paired with Swindon Supermarine one wondered whether an eighth such occurrence could be a possibility, especially as Swindon Supermarine had won the only previous F A Trophy match between the clubs 5-0 on this ground.  In fact, Swindon Supermarine on their last three visits to this ground had won two by five-goal margins and drawn on the other occasion.

However, on this occasion, Winchester City gave an excellent performance in achieving a 5-2 victory with Tommy Wright scoring three times and I K Hill scoring twice, as 11 clubs from the Southern League Premier Division South progressed to the next round of the F A Trophy and 11 were eliminated,  In fact of 64 ties played only Lewes who scored six times against Bracknell Town and Sporting Khalsa who scored five times against Harborough Town could match their five-goal tally.  The only downside for Winchester was that two of the players they bought on as substitutes had to go off injured leaving them to play the latter stages of the match with only 10 men.

Swindon Supermarine have, like last season when they stayed up despite losing their first seven games, made a slow start to this season, but have achieved good league wins against Hungerford Town away from home and Poole Town at home.  At the time of writing, they were one of the teams Winchester could catch if they won their game in hand.

Winchester made three changes to the starting line-up from the team that played at Weymouth in the FA Cup with Simba Mambo, Dan Bartlett and Danny King replacing Trevor Caborn, Jamie Barron and Jordan Rose with Caborn and Rose on the substitutes bench that also included Dom Panesar-Dower, Ollie Balmer and Alex Wilkie.

Early on Jamie Edge for Swindon Supermarine and I K Hill for Winchester had efforts that were not far off target. However, Winchester then scored 2 goals in 3 minutes, firstly with Tommy Wright scoring with a low shot from the edge of the area having been set up by Dan Jones and then the same player scoring directly from a free kick which he struck extremely well.

Despite being two goals down Swindon Supermarine then exerted some pressure forcing a few corners and pulling a goal back when Harry Williams converted a cross from Swindon Supermarine captain Ryan Campbell.  With Winchester having three times this season failed to win after going 2-0 up one hoped a repeat was not on the cards.  Goalscorers Wright and Williams had shots not far off target for their respective sides, as did Winchesters' Dan Jones, but Winchester's situation was eased in the 39th minute when Josh McCormick set up I K Hill to score their third.

Winchester by the time the third goal had gone in had made their first substitution of the afternoon with Dom Panesar-Dower replacing Luka Chalwell.  Before half time Dan Jones made a good run, which saw Tommy Wright shot over, although the flag of the referee's assistant was raised.

Winchester went into the half-time interval with a 3-1 lead and early in the second half, Williams shot wide for Swindon Supermarine and Luke Cairney saved a free kick from Jose Marquez.  The value of that save was emphasised when almost immediately I K Hill broke clear to score Winchester's 4th goal.  

Winchester then made their second substitution of the afternoon with Alex Wilkie replacing the injured substitute Dom Panesar-Dower and almost immediately Wright completed his hat-trick with another well-struck effort to make it 5-1 with more than half an hour remaining.

Midway through the second half, Winchester made their third substitution of the afternoon with Ollie Balmer replacing Dan Jones.  Luke Cairney then made good saves from Swindon Supermarine substitutes Dave Sims-Burgess and Zack Kotwica.

Winchester then replaced hat-trick hero Tommy Wright with Jordan Rose, and Luke Cairney made a further good save to keep the visitors out, but Dave Sims-Burgess did pull a goal back in the final minute of normal time.  In added on time, Jordan Rose became the second Winchester substitute to have to go off injured leaving the home team to have to play the remainder of the game with 10 men. However, there was no further score as Winchester completed a memorable first win on their new pitch.

After Tuesday's home game with Poole Town, Winchester City have league games at home to Hungerford Town on Saturday and away to Swindon Supermarine on the following Tuesday.