WINNING a trophy for the fans of Basingstoke Town was one of the aims manager Terry Brown set himself at the start of the season.

His side took another big step to achieving this on Tuesday night, as they booked their place in the semi-final of the Hampshire Senior Cup.

Basingstoke along with AFC Bournemouth and Winchester City all won their quarter-finals games and they will be joined in the last four by the winners of the one remaining tie between Hartley Wintney and AFC Totton, which will be played this coming Tuesday at Hartley after being postponed this week.

Town enjoyed a 2-0 success over AFC Stoneham as Ashleigh Artwell and George Bennett scored their first goals of the season.

However, the main talking point of the game was the double sending off after 34 minutes this was an innocuous handball led to Stoneham's Matt Palmer throwing the ball into the face of Matt Partridge who was then dismissed with Palmer for an attempted head butt.

By this time the Dragons had already roared into the lead thanks to Antwell and Bennett added a second, seven minutes from time to end a very spirited performance from the visitors.

A delighted Brown said: "We have talked about goals coming from other areas than the front men. We targeted this cup at the start of the season and now we are only one game from the final.

"I felt Aaron Jarvis was magnificent tonight and never stopped running for us. Full credit to Stoneham they gave us a game.

The only downside of the win was the sending-off Partridge and Brown said: "I spoke to ref and he says he has moved his head to head butt. You can't do that and Matt should know better. He will now miss a few games which is not ideal." Town return to league action on Saturday when Dunstable are the visitors to the Ark Cancer Charity Stadium, with midfielder Charlie Kennedy expected to be back, but Sam Deadfield is doubtful.

The Dragons beat then 3-1 earlier in the season and Brown said: "They are a very dangerous side, but we would like to keep our winning run going."