You’ve all heard of Three Men and a Baby… well, how about Three Men and a Football Club?

While the former was a huge box office hit 30 years ago this year, the latter refers to a football club much closer to home.

The club in question are Andoversford and the ‘three men’ at the club are Phil Hendy, Matt Brown and Richard Cerrone.

They are the driving forces behind the Cheltenham League club which were given an excellent platform in the early noughties by former chairman Kevin Mansell, who these days lives in Devon.

And while Three Men and a Baby was considered one of the best comedy films in the 1980s; Hendy, Brown and Cerrone are deadly serious about their aims for Andoversford.

“We are really ambitious and our goal is to get into the Northern Senior League,” said Hendy, who is club chairman and joint first-team manager with Brown.

“To do that we have to win Division One of the Cheltenham League and we feel we’ve got enough good players to do that. Most of our players could play at a higher level.

“At the very least we want to finish second because occasionally the team finishing runners-up get promoted as well. And if we don’t win promotion this season we’ll go all out to win promotion next season.”

Ask Hendy who the key players are for Andoversford and he’ll name three.

“Ryan Cleal is a very good central midfielder,” he said. “Striker Sonnie Burrows has played at a much higher level with Cheltenham Saracens and Cheltenham Civil Service, and Luke Lonergan is a good centre-back. He’s also our captain.”

And Hendy is also delighted that Jamie Ellison, who has also been with Andoversford for many years, scored his 200th goal for the club recently.

If Andoversford’s 1st XI fail to win promotion this time around it certainly won’t be through a lack of effort on the part of Hendy, Brown – who still plays as a holding midfielder – and Cerrone, who is the club’s secretary and 3rd XI manager.

They’ve put in plenty of work off the pitch to try to ensure that the dream becomes a reality, and this season the 1st XI are playing their home matches at King George V playing fields in Hester’s Way, Cheltenham, although the 2nds and 3rds continue to play in Andoversford.

“The 1sts play on the pitch that St Mark’s used to have,” said Hendy, “and we’re looking to redevelop the changing facilities. We made the move because of the pitch at Andoversford.

“It’s on a slope and very narrow and even though we won Division Two last season we found it didn’t really suit our style of football. We did better away from home on better pitches.

“The long-term aim is to try to find some land and be based in Andoversford, but for now we’re putting everything in place to try and win promotion although we know it’s going to be tough.”

It certainly is with teams like Cheltenham Civil Service around but Hendy, who was 3rd XI manager for three seasons and took over as chairman from Brown – who was also in sole charge of the 1st XI last term – is upbeat.

“We’ve come close before,” he said. “We finished third in Division One once so we know it’s something that we can achieve.”

And if they do go up, don’t be surprised if the little village just five miles outside Cheltenham gets out the red carpet for Andoversford’s three main men, just like Hollywood’s high and mighty did for the stars of Three Men and a Baby all those years ago.

Messrs Hendy, Brown and Cerrone can decide between themselves who is Tom Selleck!