BERKS County FC suffered a New Year hangover as they were thumped 5-1 at home by Newbury in the Premier Division on Saturday, writes Richard Ashton.


The Swords were undone by braces from Kye Franklin and Conor Lynch, along with a Carl Jenner strike, as they remained 10th in the table.


Cookham Dean survived a stern test from Division One side Maidenhead Magpies before securing a quarter-final berth in the Berks & Bucks Intermediate Cup with a 2-1 home win.


Nathan Lishman had a good chance for the visitors before Jon Schaaf had an even better one for Cookham as the game started at a frantic pace. 


Maidenhead nearly took the lead in the 25th minute when a Dean Knight pass sent Lishman away on the left and his accurate shot was brilliantly saved by Nick Bovingdon who came off his line quickly to deal with the threat.


Jake Brooks had a couple of half chances for Dean as the half wore on but the sides breathlessly went in at the break all square.


As the pitch began to cut up, plenty of good chances were created but there was no breakthrough until 65 minutes when Jean Claude Etienne displayed superb technique when he bent an excellent strike around Bovingdon to give the Magpies the lead.


The visitors’ joy was short-lived as Cookham went straight on the attack just a minute later.


After some incisive passing Schaaf controlled the ball inside the six-yard box, turned and in one movement fired the home side level.


In the closing stages Cookham seemed to find another gear from somewhere and began to exploit a few of the spaces which now began to appear – and a couple of the passing moves were of the highest quality and one of them led to a quite outstanding winning goal.


Passing the ball out from the back, half of the home side were involved in the move which ended with a superb cross from the right wing, the ball eluded Paul Sharpe – but arriving on the edge of the area was substitute Lee Hawkins who smashed the ball into the corner of the net from 18 yards to seal victory.


The games between Woodcote Stoke Row and Mortimer, Unity and Marlow United, Rotherfield United and Hurst, AFC Aldermaston and Reading YMCA, and Highmoor Ibis Reserves and Taplow United were all postponed following heavy rain.