It’s the end of the 2010s, a decade in which Hassocks secured both their highest and their lowest ever Premier Division finishes through four managerial reigns.
But which players turned out the most for Hassocks between the start of 2010 and the end of 2019? Here are the top 10 Robins appearance makers of the decade…
10) Rob South – 144
Right back Rob South rocked up at the Beacon in the summer of 2010 as a university student in Brighton. He played 144 times over the course of the first five seasons of the decade, becoming a popular figure with supporters for his swashbuckling runs forward as well as with the ladies for being so handsome.
Work commitments eventually bought the curtain down on South’s Hassocks career in the 2014-15 season, although he has been spotted watching the Robins on several occasions after moving back to the area.
9) Spencer Slaughter – 147
Spencer Slaughter was already an established first team player by the time 2010 arrived. He’d been part of the Under 18s side that won the Central Division title in 2005-06 and swept the board at the End of Season Awards in 2008-09, winning Players’ Player, Manager’s Player and Supporters’ Player of the Year.
As a result, bigger clubs were starting to take notice. Slaughter spent time with both Worthing and Burgess Hill Town in the Isthmian League throughout, most notably as part of the Hillians side that won the South Division in 2015. He still managed to play 147 times for Hassocks though over the course of four different spells.
8) Anthony Hibbert – 151
Anthony Hibbert sits fifth in the Robins’ all-time appearance makers list having played 462 times for the club. 151 of those games came between 2010 and his departure for East Preston in the opening month of the 2014-15 campaign.
Racking up so many appearances in just four years tells you just how important Hibbert was to Hassocks during his time at the club, along with the fact that he was hardly ever injured or suspended – not really surprising for a man who seemed to always come off the pitch cleaner than when he’d gone on!
Hibbert’s subsequent move to EP was short-lived as Dom Di Paolo resigned as manager shortly afterwards, at which point most of the squad at the Lashmar also departed. For Hibbert, that meant a move to Horsham YMCA were he played until retiring in 2016.
7) Dan Jacques – 156
It says much about enigmatic fan favourite Dan Jacques that he has racked up 156 appearances for Hassocks over the course of the past decade.
In that time, Jacques has played in every single position for the first team. He’s captained the Reserves to their historic treble in 2013 and he’s scored one of the best goals that the Beacon has ever seen in the Ann John Memorial Trophy match with Burgess Hill Town in 2014.
He’s a player that would run through a brick wall for Hassocks and that is what makes him so popular with supporters as the “He’s done it again!” cry that regularly goes up from the Maurice Boxall Stand is testament to.
6) Phil Johnson – 157
Hassocks’ current star striker first burst onto the scene with a stunning hat-trick to beat Arundel 3-2 win the Southern Combination Under 18 League Cup for the Robins’ youth team in 2008.
Johnson had to wait a further three years for his first team debut as a result of his university studies. It eventually came under Mickey Jewell in the 2011-12 campaign, since when he averages nearly a goal every other game.
156 appearances have followed in two spells either side of a short period at Burgess Hill and a couple of years at Horsham YMCA between 2015 and 2018.
Johnson has missed much of the 2019-20 season so far after breaking a leg in the Robins’ 2-1 win over East Preston back in August.
Having him back and firing – he’s notched five goals in two Under 23 appearances and came off the bench to score a consolation in the 3-2 defeat against Newhaven last month – should give Hassocks a real boost as they look to fight their way out of the relegation battle in the second half of the campaign.
5) Dan Stokes – 164
Had Dan Stokes not had three seasons interrupted by his university studies, then he could quite feasibly have topped this list of the top 10 Hassocks appearance makers of the decade.
Stokes made his senior debut as a 17-year-old against this afternoon’s opponents Steyning Town in a 3-0 Sussex Senior Cup win at the Shooting Field in 2013.
By the end of the 2013-14 season, he’d established himself as a regular in Mickey Jewell’s first team squad and had captained the Under 18s to the Central Division title.
Stokes has gone onto play 164 times for the club in the middle of the park, at full back and even as a number 10.
Those numbers are impressive enough for someone who was only 14 when 2010 arrived, but they become even more so when you consider the fact that he missed most of the 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons while studying.
4) Nathan Miles – 189
When the 2010s arrived, Nathan Miles was a young striker on the verge of a first team breakthrough. That eventually arrived in the 2010-11 season, at which point the goals began to flow.
Miles made 189 appearances between the start of the decade and his retirement in 2018, scoring 72 times in that period. His goals proved particularly invaluable to Hassocks in the 2011-12 season when the Robins secured their highest-ever finish of fourth in the Premier Division and he too might have been even higher up the list had he not suffered with a succession of injuries from 2013 until 2018.
3) James Westlake – 194
James Westlake arrived at the Beacon from St Francis Rangers with a broken leg in 2011 but once he got fit and firing, he has gone onto be one of the best Hassocks players of the past 10 years.
194 appearances have followed, despite the fact that he had two seasons back with Rangers in 2013-14 and 2014-15 and has scaled down his football commitments significantly over the past few years to focus on marathon running.
That’s not been a bad decision. Westlake In 2018, he was the seventh British finisher home in the London Marathon with a time of 2:24:19 and followed that up by representing England in the Toronto Marathon six months later where he completed in 2:23:05, a personal best.
All of which has helped Westlake become one of the most popular Hassocks players we’ve seen, as shown by him being a multiple winner of the Supporters’ Player of the Year Award.
2) Phil Gault – 225
Hassocks’ greatest ever scorer netted 139 of his record 185 goals over the course of 225 appearances in the 2010s. That tells you all you need to know about the contribution of Phil Gault to the Hassocks cause, really.
He finished as the Southern Combination League’s top scorer in both the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, the only player to achieve the feat after Pat Harding.
It was Gault’s goals which fired Hassocks to their fourth placed finish in 2012 with that period of success being forever linked with his scoring feats.
It’s no surprise that Hassocks went from being a club challenging for a top five spot to one battling relegation following Gault’s departure to Haywards Heath Town in 2014, but a year later he returned and helped keep the Robins afloat in the Premier Division before his retirement from senior football midway through the 2017-18 campaign.
1) Ashley Marsh – 282
Captain. Leader. Legend. Ashley Marsh made 525 appearances for Hassocks with 282 of those coming between 2010 and his retirement in 2018.
Marsh was an excellent defender who represented Sussex and another who ended up winning multiple Player of the Season awards during his 14 years of service. There isn’t much more to say really about a player who will rightly be known as the Mr Hassocks of the 2010s.
