A date has been set for the Sussex Senior Cup second round clash between Hassocks and Lancing with Naim Rouane bringing his high-flying Lancers to the Beacon on Tuesday 5th November.
Kick off will be at 7.45pm and entrance will be priced at the normal matchday admission prices of £6 for adults, £3 concessions with Under 16s going free.
This will be the second meeting in the competition between the two sides and the Robins will no doubt be keen to avoid a repeat of the previous experience which saw them hammered 6-1 at Culver Road in October 2011.
Phil Gault had given Mickey Jewell’s side the perfect start by scoring after only six minutes but that was about as good as things got as the Lancers ran riot afterwards with six different players on target.
Lee Denyer, Darren Boswell, Richard Hudson, Darren Annis, Dan Turner and Titus Patterson all scored although the Robins’ cause wasn’t helped by a number of weird and wonderful decisions from the match officials.
This time around, there will be plenty of familiar faces lining up between the sides. Hassocks’ Josh Green and Liam Benson have both previously played for Lancing while the visitors will have Alex Bygraves and Matt Berridge in their ranks, the latter only having swapped the Beacon for Culver Road just under a month ago.
That familiarity is one of the reasons why Hassocks against Lancing has become such an entertaining fixture over the past few seasons.
The 30 previous meetings have yielded over 100 goals at an average of other three per game, so this is definitely one to have on the over 2.5 selection on Bet365.
Lancing were victorious in the most recent clash which came in Mid Sussex back on August Bank Holiday Monday. A turgid first half wasn’t really in keeping with the game’s reputation but things sprung into life when substitute James Littlejohn put Hassocks into the lead on the hour mark.
It was one of Lancing’s own replacements who won them the game and ensured their 100% record remained intact, Alex Fair striking twice in the space of three minutes with a quarter of an hour remaining to put Lancing 2-1 ahead with a quarter of an hour remaining.
That wasn’t the end of the action however as Hassocks won a last minute penalty but unfortunately for the hosts, Ben Bacon’s effort was kept out by Lancing goalkeeper Tayler Seymour.
It was revenge of sorts for the Lancers, who’d given up four points against Hassocks in the 2018-19 season. The Robins won 3-1 at the Beacon on Boxing Day before Dan Stokes 95th minute strike rescued a point four months later when Hassocks went to Culver Road on Easter Monday and drew 2-2.
In other County Cup news, the Under 23s Sussex Challenge Cup second round tie against Horsham YMCA has been set for Thursday 7th November with a 7.30pm start at Gorings Mead and the Under 18s have a tantalising Mid Sussex derby with Burgess Hill Town in the Sussex Bluefin Dennis Probee Youth Cup on Sunday 10th. Kick off in that one is 11am at the Green Elephants Stadium.
