Hot on the heels of Hassocks’ trip to Horsham YMCA comes another visit to a ground at which the Robins have struggled as Mark Dalgleish takes his side to Pagham.
Hassocks last tasted victory at Nyetimber Lane in October 2011 when goals from Phil Gault and Phil Johnson delivered a 2-1 victory for Mickey Jewell’s side.
That’s part of a pretty terrible overall record against the Lions. The Robins have only beaten Pagham once since 2013. That came last season and it was well worth the wait in fact, a spectacular team performance delivering a 4-0 win at the Beacon back in March.
Johnson was again on target, notching a brace that day. Liam Benson and Will Broomfield were the other scorers as Hassocks were completely dominant against a side who looked to be in title contention only a few months previously.
The Lions had began last season a blaze of glory and right up until the end of November it looked like the title would be a two-horse race between them and eventual champions Chi.
But their form dived off a cliff in November, not helped by a number of big-name departures and in the end they struggled to an 11th placed finish on 45 points. To put that into context, they accumulated 31 of those in the first 15 games of the campaign.
There was a change of manager in the summer as a result with former East Preston boss Bob Paine taking over. A difficult opening run of fixtures means that Pagham are yet to pick up a point so far this season.
Their opening two games came against two sides who could be considered dark horses for the title in Saltdean United and AFC Uckfield Town and resulted in 2-0 and 3-0 defeats respectively.
They then drew 1-1 with Tunbridge Wells in the FA Cup before exiting the competition in a replay. At the weekend, it was newly promoted Steyning Town were inflicted further misery with a 2-0 win at the Shooting Field.
That should give Hassocks some hope for the long journey west of improving that fairly poor record against Pagham. Overall, the head-to-head reads Pagham 25 victories, Hassocks’ 17 and nine draws.
The Robins have one former Lion among their ranks in Jack Rowe-Hurst who had a brief spell at Pagham last season. There is some doubt about whether he will be fit to face his former team however given that he lasted only 30 minutes of Hassocks’ 2-2 draw at YM.
Kick off at Nyetimber Lane is at the slightly earlier time of 7.30pm.
