It’s the penultimate home game of the 2018-19 season for Hassocks at the Beacon this Saturday with promotion chasing Eastbourne Town the visitors in Southern Combination League Premier Division action.
Town will arrive in Mid Sussex just about in the hunt for a top two finish and elevation back to the Bostik League after a five-year absence thanks to a hugely impressive second half of the campaign.
This has been a typical season for the visitors really. Since their return to the Southern Combination League in 2014, Town have been slow to start campaigns which is ultimately what has cost them in the title race.
This time around, they picked up just one win from their first six games across all competitions before beginning to build up some momentum which has put them back into the battle for the runners up spot.
They are four points behind current second placed side Horsham YMCA having played the same number of games as YM and with both sides having five fixtures left to play, they could yet find themselves finishing behind Chichester City who must surely have the title won.
Town should come to the Beacon confident of picking up three points if their record in the fixture is anything to go by. There have been 33 games between the two sides with Town winning over half of them – 18 – to the Robins nine with six draws along the way.
In 23 meetings in the Southern Combination Premier, Town again edge the head-to-head. Hassocks meanwhile have won just once against Town in the past 14 years – a shock 2-1 success here at the Beacon towards the end of the 2016-17 season with Phil Gault scoring twice and James Broadbent saving a penalty against his former club.
A small crumb of comfort for the hosts is that this game takes place in Mid Sussex. You have to go back to 2006 to find the last time Hassocks won away at the Saffrons, although they did at least make something of a match of it on their visit to the sunshine coast in December before going down to a 2-1 defeat.
Sonny Dullaway and Marcus Goldsmith scored within five minutes of each other to put Town in a strong position before James Westlake pulled one back to set up a nervy last 20 minutes or so.
Town saw it out though to pick up three precious points in their quest for promotion – Hassocks will know they’ll need to be at their best to prevent a repeat.
Entrance is priced at £6 adults, £3 concessions and under 16s go free. The Robins Bar will be open serving beer throughout the afternoon and the T Bar will be catering for all your hot food and drink needs.
Please note that this is yet another weekend in which engineering works are being carried out on the London to Brighton mainline. As a result, it is a rail replacement bus service between Brighton and Three Bridges to Hassocks which may affect your journey time.
