Striker becomes the sixth player to hit 100 for Hassocks in senior football
With his first half strike away at Eastbourne United, Phil Johnson joined a very exclusive club of players to score 100 goals in senior football for Hassocks.
Phil Gault, James Laing, Pat Harding, Anthony Hibbert and Robbie Kitchen are the five others to have hit a century, with Johnson becoming the first man to achieve the feat since Gault over a decade ago.
He has reached the landmark in 197 matches since making his debut in the 2007-08 season after bursting onto the scene with a sensational hat-trick as the Under 18s won the Southern Combination League Youth Cup in a 3-2 win over Arundel.
University commitments meant Johnson did not become a first team regular at the Beacon until the 2011-12 season under Mickey Jewell.
He scored his first senior goal at Worthing United in a 2-1 defeat in August 2011 and went onto finish the season with nine in 39 appearances.
Four more goals from nine games followed in 2012-13 and seven in 20 through 2013-14 as further studies restricted his involvement.
The 2014-15 campaign saw Johnson establish himself as the Robins’ talisman following the departure of Gault and Nathan Miles’ unfortunate injury problems.
Despite being regularly seen in popular Burgess Hill nightspots such as The Railway and Jacobs Post, Johnson plundered 26 goals from 39 appearances.
Those goals fired Hassocks to a great escape from relegation and saw Johnson win a clean sweep of Players’ Player, Managers’ Player and Supporters’ Player of the Season awards.
His form attracted the attention of Burgess Hill Town and Johnson moved to Leylands Park that summer. A brief spell at Haywards Heath Town was followed by a goal-laden two-and-a-half years at Horsham YMCA, where Johnson scored 53 times in 102 appearances.
Mark Dalgleish managed to tempt Johnson back to the Beacon in 2018. He brought up his Hassocks half century with the fourth goal of his second spell, the 50 coming from 114 matches – meaning Johnson has increased his run rate through the second half of his century.
The 2018-19 season ended up being his most prolific campaign so far for the Robins, ending it with 27 in 40 matches as Hassocks secured their highest league finish in five years.
Johnson broke his leg against East Preston in the second game of the 2019-20 season, although he did not realise it at the time and tried to play on.
That was the start of an injury hit campaign in which he played only 13 times. With Johnson able to contribute just three goals because of his lengthy absence, Hassocks were deep in relegation trouble when Covid-19 brought the campaign to a premature closure.
Johnson moved to Crawley Down Gatwick in the summer of 2020, playing 47 matches over two seasons at the Haven and scoring 30 times.
23 of those goals came in the 2021-22 season, despite Johnson spending virtually the entire second half of the campaign out injured.
Johnson returned to Hassocks for a third spell last summer, becoming James Westlake’s sixth signing as Robins head coach.
It took until the sixth game of the season for Johnson to get up and running, giving Hassocks a shock lead against Isthmian League South Central side Uxbridge in the FA Cup.
Since then however, there has been no looking back. Johnson currently has 24 goals from 34 matches and has been particularly prolific since the turn of the year, notching 10 in 13.
With at least eight more games to play, there is a strong possibility that Johnson will surpass his previous best season’s tally of 27.
Gault was the last player to break the 30 mark in 2013-14 whilst Johnson is within sight of Premier Division leading scorer Alfie Rogers, who has 27 for Newhaven.
If Johnson were to win the Premier Division golden boot, he would become only the third Hassocks player ever to achieve the feat after Gault and Harding.
Johnson’s century includes two four-goal hauls. The first came in a 5-2 win at Crawley Down in March 2019; the most recent in October, when he had the Robins’ Sussex Principal RUR Charity Cup tie at Forest Row done and dusted before half time.
He has two Hassocks hat-tricks – both coming against Selsey in the 2014-15 campaign – and 17 braces against 13 different sides.
Arundel have been victims of a Johnson double on three separate occasions, Roffey twice this season and Horsham YMCA twice.
AFC Varndeanians, Corinthian, East Grinstead Town, Hailsham Town, Lingfield, Loxwood, Pagham, Ringmer, Rye United and Shoreham are the other opponents Johnson has two goals in a game against.
Three of those braces have proven particularly dramatic, thanks to Johnson’s penchant for scoring doubles late in the day.
At Arundel in April 2013, he struck in the 88th and 89th minutes to turn a 2-1 deficit into a rare three points from Mill Road.
Four months later and a Johnson double salvo in the final 10 earned Hassocks a point from a 2-2 home draw with East Grinstead.
And at Roffey last month, he prevented the Robins from becoming the first side to lose a league game against the Boars this season by scoring in the 88th and 94th minutes as Hassocks came from behind to win 2-1.
Congratulations to Jonno on reaching such a significant milestone… here is to the next 100?
