Hassocks will face a potentially hair-raising experience in the Sussex Senior Cup as they go to the Mullets of Arundel in the first round of the competition.
The draw took place on Saturday 14th September live on BBC Radio Sussex and paired the Robins with an extremely familiar foe.
There aren’t many clubs on the Southern Combination League circuit that Hassocks have faced as often as Arundel, with 49 previous meetings between the two. And meeting number 50 will be the first time that we’ve crossed swords in the Sussex Senior Cup.
44 of the fixtures have taken place in the Premier Division, a result of Hassocks being the longest serving member of the top flight having played there since 1994. Arundel’s own unbroken run stretching back to 2000 only came to an end with relegation at the end of last season.
That could have made 2019-20 the first season for 20 years in which Hassocks and the Mullets hadn’t met until the intervention of the Senior Cup.
The two games last season saw a win apiece. Hassocks went to Mill Road in August, where a 3-1 victory gave Mark Dalgleish his first success in sole charge of the club. Phil Johnson scored twice on that evening with a rare goal from Dan Stokes rounding off the result.
It was an altogether different story back in January when the Mullets won 2-0 at the Beacon through goals from Ben Gray and Harry Russell, one of the most disappointing performances of Hassocks’ entire campaign.
Those two results are part of an interesting change in the dynamics of the fixture over the past few seasons. It used to be the case that whoever was the home side would tend to win but that seems to have been flipped on its head in the last five years, culminating in away wins for both last season.
That will give Arundel confidence that they can pull off a shock when the teams meet, especially as they’re flying in Division One so far having won three games out of three.
No date has yet been set for the tie, although it does have to be played before Wednesday 2nd October.
