The road to the Amex gets underway on Tuesday night as Hassocks make the trip to take on Arundel in the first round of the Sussex Senior Cup.
There aren’t many clubs on the Southern Combination League circuit that Hassocks have faced as often as the Mullets, with 49 previous meetings between the two. 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.
Hassocks have a pretty poor record against lower division clubs in knockout competitions, having been the victims of countless eliminations against Division One opponents over the past decade.
The Robins will certainly face a difficult task at Mill Road. Arundel have enjoyed an extremely strong start to the season as they look to secure an immediate return to the top flight, winning five and losing one of their six league fixtures so far.
They also had an impressive run in the FA Cup, eliminating Banstead Athletic in the extra preliminary qualifying round of the competition and Shoreham at the preliminary stage.
That set them up for a clash with Isthmian League South East side Ramsgate in the first qualifying round. The Mullets held the Rams to a hugely impressive 0-0 draw at Southwood Stadium, before eventually finding their opponents from two levels above too strong as they went down 4-0 in the replay back at Mill Road.
Kick off is at 7.45pm.
