Seventh heaven for Hassocks Veterans in first game since 2018
For the first time since the 2017-18 season, a Hassocks Veterans side took to the pitch. It proved to be worth the wait as Nick Newman’s men ran out 7-1 winners away at South Godstone.
The Robins will spend this season competing for the Fred Pretty Veterans Plate. They have been drawn in Group B and will face each of the nine other teams once with a league table deciding who progresses to the knockout stages.
Given the quality that Hassocks possess in terms of the players they have signed on, they will fancy their chances of doing well.
Most of the names will be familiar to long-term Robins supporters. Some of them will make you feel incredibly old, wondering how on earth they now qualify for vets football.
Others you will wonder how they are still playing, given that they were in their 50s 10 years ago. That is the beauty of vets football – it is such an eclectic mix of individuals that can never not be entertaining.
Take Hassocks’ front line for the trip to South Godstone. On the one hand you had Pat Harding, a man who scored six times in six appearances for the Robins first team in the Southern Combination Supplementary Shield last season and who is still turning out regularly in the Isthmian League for Burgess Hill Town.
On the other, you had the great Steve Spies. He scored once for Hassocks Fatboys in the Sussex Sunday Premier Division last season.
His most famous moment in a Robins shirt meanwhile came when scoring two own goals, giving away a penalty and getting sent off in the space of 20 minutes of a Hassocks IIIs game many moons ago against Wisdom Sports, before joining the opposition for a pub crawl of Haywards Heath afterwards.
To be fair, that does Spiesy a bit of a disservice and he has always been lethal in veterans football, going right back to 2008 when the previous Hassocks side was set up.
Both Spies and Harding scored twice at South Godstone. Dave Juniper was the other player to nab a brace with the seventh goal coming from Elliott Butler.
Also turning out for Hassocks were player-manager Newman and former Republic of Ireland Under 21 international Paul Armstrong, who pla yedfor Brighton, Airdrie United, Crawley Town and Eastbourne Borough during his career.
Owen Barry was the scorer of the South Godstone consolation, ruining Hassocks’ hopes of a clean sheet to mark their return.
Despite not keeping a shutout, this was as perfect a start to the campaign as Newman and his squad could have hoped for.
Their next fixture takes them to Charlwood on Sunday 10th October followed by a trip to Furnace Green Rovers on Sunday 7th November.
The first opportunity to watch the Veterans at the Beacon this season will come on Sunday 21st November at 2pm against Ansty Sports & Social.
Get it in the diary as it is one you will not want to miss.
Hassocks: Robert Sayers, Che Williams, Nick Newman, Oliver Gosden, Lee De La Rue Browne, Jonathan Bundy, Paul Armstrong, Elliott Butler, Dave Juniper, Steve Spies, Pat Harding.
Subs: Paul Gurr (used).
