Liam Benson has become the 50th player to make a century of appearances for Hassocks in senior football.
The striker played his 100th game for the Robins in the 4-1 defeat away against Saltdean United, becoming the 40th youth team product to reach the milestone in the process.
Benson joined the Robins youth set up in the summer of 2013 and went onto score 22 goals in 27 appearances as Hassocks ended the 2013-14 season as Under 18 Central Division champions for the first time in eight years.
Mickey Jewell gave him his first team debut that same season as a substitute in a 1-0 win over Dorking Wanderers on April 24th 2014 with Benson’s Under 18 teammate Dan Stokes deciding the game with his first senior goal.
Benson made his full debut two days later away at already-crowned champions East Preston but had to wait nearly three more years to truly establish himself as a first team regular.
In that time, he became a regular scorer for the Reserves and then the Under 21s squad, netting 13 times from 30 appearances in his first season of men’s football with the second string in 2014-15, scoring five in nine when Under 21 football was introduced for the 2015-16 season and notching 15 times from 16 appearances in 2016-17.
That was the campaign in which Benson made the breakthrough to become a first team regular.
He scored his first senior goal as a substitute in an 8-0 rout of Hailsham Town on August Bank Holiday Monday but his breakthrough performance came when league leaders Shoreham visited the Beacon and were blown away by a Hassocks side who looked in deep relegation trouble at that point.
Benson scored two brilliant goals as Hassocks shocked the Musselmen with a 4-1 victory, the first coming when he raced clear of the visiting defence to beat Shoreham goalkeeper Josh Heyburn with a stonking finish and the second rounding off a blistering counter.
He ended that campaign with 10 goals from 29 appearances and began the 2017-18 season in equally impressive form, racking up seven goals from 22 games before moving to Lancing in November 2017.
Benson spent eight months at Culver Road, scoring twice against Hassocks last March before returning to the Beacon in the summer with his record so far this season reading 10 goals from 34 games for a career total of 27 goals from 101 appearances in as Hassocks shirt so far.
