DOGGED DEFENCE DENIES THE TITLE FAVOURITES IN SEASON OPENER
An outstanding defensive display from Hassocks saw them open the Southern Combination Premier Division season with an excellent point against one of the favourites to lift the title come the end of the campaign.
This is Horsham’s first season at this level of football since 1951 and they clearly want it to be a brief stay. Following relegation from Ryman South at the end of the previous campaign, new Hornets boss Dom Di Paolo has called upon all his contacts to put together a side that is packed with class and experience.
Most of the new faces wearing gold and green for 2015-16 have played under Di Paolo before in his outstanding East Preston side that won the Premier Division two seasons ago.
At one point in that campaign, Mickey Jewell’s Hassocks were EP’s nearest pursuers. Not that that was saying much as EP still completed the double over the Robins with 4-0 and 5-0 victories.
Most of the 168 in attendance on this warm August day – including a sizeable travelling contingent – would have been expecting similar. It had away banker written all over it.
The Robins hadn’t read that script though. The game and the season were only six minutes old when they took a shock lead through a stunning strike from Nathan Miles.
With last season’s top scorer Phil Johnson having departed for Burgess Hill Town, joint boss Mark Dalgleish said in the build up to the campaign getting underway that having a fit and firing Miles after two injury hit years would be like making a new signing.
The theory goes that Hassocks don’t need to go out and find a new man to replace Johnson as they already have one in their ranks. They just need to find a way to keep him injury free.
Whether they can do that is the million dollar question. There’s no doubting Miles’ quality and he showed every ounce of it with the opener, an unstoppable effort from way out on the right after a long free kick was headed down.
Hassocks seemed content to sit back and soak up the pressure after that. Scott Murfin poked wide a one-on-one for the visitors who then saw several penalty shouts turned down. One of those appeared to be stonewall when a home hand was struck inside the area from a free kick.
Reece Wickwar made a good stop low down from Kieran Pamment before the visitors were finally awarded a spot kick, a clumsy challenge from youth team defender Bradley Tighe allowing Hornets captain Joe Shelley to fire home hard and low with just over 30 minutes played.
The blocks began flying in as the Robins clung on before the half time whistle. Ashley Marsh and Nick Pitcher in particular were busy throwing their bodies on the line to stop anything reaching Wickwar’s goal.
Half time arrived at a good time for Hassocks as they were able to regroup and Horsham weren’t able to find the same intensity they’d played with in the first half.
In fact, Hassocks could even have retaken the lead when Miles sprung the offside trap but his one-on-one effort was straight at Horsham goalkeeper Gareth Williams.
The woodwork came to Hassocks’ rescue again with 20 minutes left, Mark Knee’s deep cross looping over Wickwar before smashing against the bar and the Robins keeper did well to deny both Samir Hadi and Shelley in the closing stages.
Hassocks: Reece Wickwar; Bradley Tighe, Ashley Marsh, Tom Barnes, Dan Jacques; Dan Stokes, Bradley Bant, Nick Pitcher, Josh Hawkes, Jamie Hillwood; Nathan Miles.
Subs: Jordan Millis (Hawkes 84), Jake Booth, Jack Wilkins, Cam Williams (unused).
