LUCKLESS ROBINS BEATEN BY THE BARROWMEN
Rarely does the outcome of a football match hinge on two moments inside the opening eight minutes, but that was the case as Hassocks suffered a 3-1 home reversal against Steyning Town.
Seven minutes had elapsed when Charlie Pitcher chased a cause which the Steyning defence had given up on into the corner, collected it and made his way into the box where he was clumsily brought down by Scott Faber.
Referee Mark Gidman pointed to the spot, giving Hassocks the perfect opportunity to make the perfect start to proceedings. Unfortunately for the Robins, Jack Troak saw his penalty repelled by Steyning goalkeeper Alex Theobald. Blow number one to Hassocks’ hopes of victory.
Blow number two arrived seconds later with the sight of Pitcher going to ground, holding his leg and in an obvious amount of pain. Nobody seemed to know whether Pitcher had injured himself when galloping to retrieve the ball or in the foul itself, but whatever the reason he was unable to continue.
On another night, Hassocks are 1-0 ahead after a blistering start and with their star striker already tormenting another opposition defence. Instead, they found themselves still at 0-0 and with their main source of goals now looking at a spell on the sidelines.
It was little wonder that Hassocks’ early momentum deserted them after Pitcher was replaced by Chris Neatherway. What’s more, Steyning knew they had been let off the hook.
The lucky escape galvanised them and within a couple of minutes, Dave Carruthers made the first of several smart stops as the Barrowmen turned what had been a one-way contest into an end-to-end contest.
The action ebbed and flowed, only slowing down briefly when a headed clearance from Faber bounced through the door of the ladies’ toilet with a bit of delay in proceedings until a brave man stepped forward to go and collect.
10 minutes later and the ball had gone from the women’s facilities to the back of the Steyning net as Troak made up for his penalty miss by rounding off an excellent counter attack.
Carruthers began the move, collecting a cross which he bowled out to Louis Pittock on the right. Pittock carried the ball 30 yards down the pitch, making ground just into the Steyning half before hitting a brilliant switch to Troak who brought it down on the edge of the box, danced away from Rob Clark and rifled a shot across Theobald to finish with aplomb.
The lead did not last long. Straight from the restart and Steyning worked their way to just outside the Hassocks area, where Dan Turner was harshly adjudged to have fouled George Cousins. Tom Bold made no mistake from the resulting free kick, curling a stunning effort over the wall and into the top corner.
Steyning took the lead right on the stroke of half time when Cian Griffin-Tilley found himself in one-on-one with Carruthers. The Hassocks goalkeeper pulled off a superb save to keep out the initial effort, only to see the ball stop just short of going out for a corner with Griffin-Tilley gleefully collecting to score at the second attempt.
Having conceded so late at the end of the first half, Hassocks needed to keep it tight early in the second if they were to have any hope of getting back into the tie.
Frustratingly for the home faithful, they did the complete opposite. Turner was guilty of overplaying when he should have cleared his lines and as the young centre back tried to retrieve the situation, he gave Mr Gidman the excuse to harshly penalise him for a second time.
Turner’s foul this time was in the area and Bold duly stepped up to make it 3-1 with a penalty which gave Carruthers no chance.
Hassocks responded well to the setback and Joe Bull was not far away with an ambitious dipping volley from 30 yards which dropped just wide.
Steyning should have gone down to 10 on the hour mark when Charlie Roman put a two-footed horror lunge in on George Brown, who was booked for his reaction.
The red mist was clearly descending for Brown and it was sadly inevitable when four minutes later, Brown repaid the favour with an equally bad challenge on the innocent Bold.
Mr Gidman had little choice but to dismiss the Hassocks defender, although the Robins point that Romain should have gone for the initial tackle which sparked Brown’s head loss had plenty of merit.
Any hope Hassocks had of getting back into the game evaporated once they went down to 10. They did have an 89th minute appeal for another penalty turned down when Pittock crossed deep for Bull who was bundled over.
Steyning could have added to the score before that incident, Carruthers making excellent saves to deny Harry Heath, Romain and Cousins.
Hassocks: Dave Carruthers; Louis Pittock, George Brown, Dan Turner, Andy Whittingham; James Littlejohn, Harvey Enticknap, Bradley Bant, Jack Troak; Charlie Pitcher, Joe Bull.
Subs: Chris Neatherway (Pitcher 08), Jack Gardner (Neatherway 65), Alfie Loversidge (Enticknap 78), George Galbraith-Gibbons, Jayden Dunkley (unused).
