Defender becomes 10th Robins youth team product to play 200 times for the club
Bradley Tighe recently passed the milestone of 200 appearances for Hassocks in the Robins’ dramatic 2-1 victory over Little Common at the Beacon.
And he marked the occasion by showing his new-found attacking prowess, providing the assist which led to fellow defender Dan Turner scoring an 86th minute winner.
Four days later and Tighe scored only his second goal for the Robins in his 201st match, helping Hassocks win 2-1 away at Peacehaven & Telscombe to equal the club record of seven consecutive victories in senior football.
Tighe’s first career goal had arrived nine games earlier, also against Peacehaven. You wait 192 games for him to score, and then two come along in the space of nine matches.
The scenes of celebration which greeted Tighe finally breaking his duck against the Tye back in November were indicative of a player who is hugely popular with everyone at the Beacon.
Tighe made his senior debut as a 17-year-old in 2014. Through three different spells with the Robins over nearly a decade, he has played under six different Hassocks management teams.
Dave John installed Tighe the teenager as first choice right back in the 2014-15 season, a role he continued to hold under Mark Dalgleish and Phil Wickwar.
The 2015-16 campaign saw Tighe become one of the youngest ever winners of a Hassocks Players’ Player of the Season Award before leaving for Ringmer in the summer of 2017 after 74 appearances for the Robins.
When Ringmer folded at the end of the 2017-18 season, Tighe had a brief stay with Lancing until Dalgleish brought him back to the Beacon in November 2018. A further 27 matches followed before a move to Seaford Town in 2019.
Tighe then returned to Hassocks during the 2021 lockdown, his third spell at the club beginning in the Southern Combination Premier Division Supplementary Shield.
His 100th Robins appearance came in that competition, denying Tighe the acknowledgement of the Hassocks crowd with games being played behind closed doors.
Tighe was named Manager’s Player of the Season in 2021-22 by Brad Sweetman as his defensive partnership with Turner played a major role in helping the Robins avoid relegation.
Hassocks kept six clean sheets from the final 13 matches of the campaign, surviving the drop into Division One from what had looked a hopeless position in the autumn.
Tighe has remained a regular for the past two seasons under James Westlake, playing at both centre back and right back in the current season.
He becomes the 10th youth team product to make 200 appearances for the Robins in senior football. Here is to the next 200 for a player who has gone from Young Brad to a Hassocks Stalwart – with hopefully a few more goals thrown in.
