TOTTON & Eling suffered a double blow in their quest for Sydenhams Premier Division survival on Saturday.

Not only were they beaten 3-0 at second-placed Winchester City, but third-to-bottom Christchurch gave them an extra kick in the teeth by dredging up a late equaliser at Hamworthy.

“We were gutted,” admitted Millers chairman/co-manager Andy Tipp.

“We’d been looking on Twitter for updates from the Christchurch game and knew they were 1-0 down, so it was dire when they equalised.

“We weren’t banking on winning at Winchester but, that said, we genuinely went there thinking we could do it after we’d beaten them at our place. The 3-0 scoreline flattered them massively but, unfortunately for us, their finishing was better than ours.

“Winchester went 1-0 up early doors but we played (ex-Saint) Jo Tessem at the back and he did really well.

“(City top scorer) Warren Bentley didn’t get a sniff for 75 minutes but then he had two chances and scored two goals. Until then, I thought the teams were very evenly matched.”

Both sides played almost an hour with ten men after T&E’s Connor Hoare and City’s Micky Hubbard were red-carded.

Hoare struck out at Hubbard but, according to Tipp, it was an act of retaliation after the former Portchester youngster had been “bullied” by his more experienced opponent.

“All the ref saw was the retaliation, but the linesman piped and told the ref that Connor hadn’t done it for nothing and it ended up with them both getting a straight red,” he explained.

At 1-0, Chris Marwood had a glorious chance to wipe out Zach Glasspool’s left-foot opener, but he somehow contrived to miss a tap-in.

Realistically T&E (home to Verwood this Saturday and away to Horndean on April 25) will need maximum points from their last two games to stand any chance of reeling in third-to-bottom Christchurch – while praying that Priory and bottom club Fareham drop points.

“I think it’s going to go to the last day,” said Tipp. “All we can do is try and win our games and hope for the best, but the good thing is that our players are excited by the fact that there is something left to play for.”

Winchester’s director of football Dave Malone would like to see T&E survive.

“They were half decent, hard to beat and hundreds better than some of the other sides down near the bottom,” he said.

“It would be a shame to see them go down when they’ve had so much adversity to fight against.

“I admire Andy Tipp and Jo Tessem. They don’t have to do it, do they?”