REDHILL RUN RIOT TO RUIN ROBINS
After kicking off their County League season with a solid 2-1 win over the previous year’s runners up Lancing, Hassocks were in a bouyant mood ahead of the visit of Redhill to the Beacon.
90 minutes later and the Robins had a stark reminder of how quickly football can take you from extreme highs to the lowest of the lows as they were blown away 5-0 by the Lobsters and received some damaging injury news about Spencer Slaughter.
Slaughter didn’t appear for the second half of that weekend win over the Lancers with Jake Forward taking his place, although there was nothing at the time to suggest of the severity of the issue that their talismanic midfielder had picked up.
Certainly those Robins supporters who turned out to see their side take on Redhill wouldn’t have expected to see Slaughter hobbling around the Beacon with his left foot in a cast.
Early diagnoses suggests a ligament problem, a cruel blow for Slaughter who missed much of last season through injury before being restricted to cameo appearances off the bench in the final weeks as Hassocks secured their best ever finish.
It’s also a big blow for Hassocks’ hopes of bettering that fourth place showing, given the quality that a fit and firing Slaughter can bring.
They certainly missed his combative side here as they fell alarmingly apart in the second half to crash to their biggest home defeat since 2007 against an admittedly impressive Redhill outfit.
It was perhaps a little unfortunate to meet the Surrey club so early in the season when they are traditionally at their strongest.
Redhill’s campaigns tend to begin with a string of impressive results before Christmas, after which several of their better players leave and they fade away to a midtable finish.
If they can keep this squad together then they’ll justify their tag as dark horses for the title this season but given what has happened in previous seasons, that is a very big if.
No matter the quality that Redhill currently have on show, Hassocks still need to take a long look at themselves as it was a little embarrassing the way the hosts surrendered so meekly after the break. They were trailing only 1-0 at the turnaround but in the end were totally outclassed.
Brazilian Gus Sousa posed particular problems and he pulled a magnificent close range save from Jack Simpson with a quarter of an hour on the clock. At that stage, Redhill had already had a Jimmy Davies ‘goal’ ruled out for offside.
They finally went ahead on 20 minutes when Sean Kelly nodded back a corner at the far post and Gavin Gordon headed the ball in from close range.
The Robins’ best moment of the first half came on 32 minutes when Anthony Hibbert broke from midfield but despite getting in a powerful shot, the angle always favoured visiting keeper Andy Greaves who was able to make the save.
Calvin Headley cleared off the line from Kieran O’Callaghan on 50 minutes as Hassocks tried to force the equaliser, but it was all downhill after that from a Robins point of view.
Gordon made it 2-0 on 66 minutes and seven minutes later Leroy Griffiths scored with a powerful left-footer for 3-0.
The hosts were well beaten at that stage and were punished for over-elaboration at the back as Chris Maynard, Ashley Marsh and Simpson got into a right mess, allowing Redhill substitute Tyrone Pink to lob Simpson on 82 minutes. The misery was complete when Pink struck again four minutes later.
Hassocks: Jack Simpson; James Westlake, Ashley Marsh, Kieran O’Callaghan, Chris Maynard; Anthony Hibbert, Jake Forward, Nathan Cooper, Jamie Weston; Nathan Miles, Phil Gault.
Subs: Louis Pople (Miles 57), Lee Bryant (Weston 74), Luke Pawson (Maynard 57).
