NO DEAL FOR HASSOCKS AS VASE DREAMS ARE ENDED
Without their deadly strike duo of Phil Gault and Nathan Miles, Hassocks were always likely to face a tough ask in winning away at Kent League high flyers Deal Town in the first round of the FA Vase.
That task was made all the harder by an astonishing performance from a referee clearly out of his depth who conspired to award a blatant Hassocks penalty as a free kick to Deal, incorrectly rule out a Robins goal for offside and book Ashley Marsh and Kieran O’Callaghan for dissent in 90 bewildering minutes.
The hosts won the Vase 12 years ago in a rare success for a southern side but despite their rich pedigree in the competition, Mickey Jewell and his players spent most of an interesting journey home wondering what might have been.
What might have been if there was a competent man in the middle; what might have been had they not been shorn of the services of their 16-goal strike force and what might have been had they reached the performance levels shown when confidently dispatching of Ringmer 5-1 four days previously.
Jewell made one change to the side that had won so impressively at the Caburn, with Louis Pople taking Gault’s place in attack to partner Dan Smith, scorer of a four-goal haul in Tuesday night’s win.
It was Pople who was involved in the afternoons first moment of controversy within 10 minutes of kick off. Anthony Hibbert’s excellent through ball sent the striker racing clear on goal and he rounded the goalkeeper, only for the Deal number one to quite blatantly grab Pople’s leg to send him tumbling to the ground.
Three times the referee looked towards his linesman for guidance and then to the disbelief of everybody in attendance, awarded Deal a free kick and booked Pople for diving.
The home support were laughing at that decision and less than two minutes later, their laughter turned to joy as Deal went straight up the other end and took the lead.
An earlier downpour had made the already heavy surface at the Charles Sports Ground cut up and that did for Marsh, Andy Miller’s cross from out on the left skidding under the foot of the Robins defender to leave Charlie Walsh with an easy finish.
Hassocks had another penalty appeal turned down with 25 minutes claimed when Hibbert was pushed in the back while trying to attack a set piece and thoughts that it wasn’t going to be the Robins day were confirmed when Deal doubled their lead just past the half hour mark, Jake Marsh nipping between Stuart Faith and Rob South to score.
Hassocks upped the tempo after the break and had the majority of the play but struggled to break down a resolute home defence. On the one occasion they did get through, James Westlake’s effort was correctly ruled out for offside.
Frustrations began boiling over with those subsequent yellow cards for Marsh and O’Callaghan and the Robins mood wasn’t improved at the final whistle following some unsavoury scenes after a couple of Deal players mocked the long journey home Hassocks had with nothing to show.
Hassocks: Jack Simpson; Rob South, Ashley Marsh, Stuart Faith, Lee Bryant; James Westlake, Anthony Hibbert, Kieran O’Callaghan, Jamie Weston; Dan Smith, Louis Pople.
Subs: Spencer Slaughter (South), Elliott Butler (O’Callaghan), Dan Jacques (Weston), Stuart Brown, Andy Edwards (unused).
Starman: Anthony Hibbert who kept working and prompting with no luck.
