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Roffey comeback denies Dockers much-needed victory

Roffey 2 Newhaven 2, SCFL Premier Division match #14 Newhaven travelled to Roffey last night for a rearranged league fixture, postponed a few weeks ago due to a waterlogged pitch. With the Dockers currently in a poor run of form, and coming off the back of disappointing consecutive losses against struggling Shoreham and Little Common, Roffey will have been confident of building on their own two-match league winning run. Newhaven’s starting 11 looked as strong as it had done for quite a while, with Callum Edwards back among the starters for the first time since injury, alongside the recently returned from Steyning Alfie Rogers and Ryan Blunt, playing back-to-back matches for just about the first time this season. Before we get to the game itself, I just have to say a quick word about Roffey’s ground which is absolutely lovely (admittedly, that’s a strange adjective with which to describe a football ground, but in this instance the cap certainly fits. The so-called Theatre of Tre
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Lacklustre Newhaven limp to defeat

Shoreham 1 Newhaven 0, SCFL Premier Division match #12 Newhaven reached another milestone during yesterday’s match away at Shoreham, as Ben Cheverton became the 41 st Docker to appear for the first team this season. Typical of how Newhaven’s season is going, Cheverton’s debut was somewhat fast-tracked when Tom Vickers pulled-up injured in the warm-up. It comes to something when the injury jinx is striking even before we make in on to the pitch! Losing a key player so close to kick-off wasn’t exactly ideal preparation. And the day failed to improve from there Shoreham went into the match having accumulated just nine points from their opening 12 games and having conceded 28 goals. Yet the disjointed Dockers only rarely looked like adding any damage to Shoreham's goal's against tally, as the visitors looked largely comfortable on route to what could prove to be three valuable points for them. After a scrappy start from both sides, Newhaven had the game’s first opportuni
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More penalty heartache for much-improved Dockers

Newhaven 1 East Grinstead 1, East Grinstead win 7-6 on penalties, Sussex Senior Cup Round 2 Newhaven hosted higher division opponents East Grinstead last night in the second round of the Sussex Senior Cup. With injuries still playing havoc with the Dockers early season form, a midweek cup match against a team from a higher league, in a competition that we're unlikely to win, was probably the last thing Newhaven wanted. East Grinstead currently sit in 13 th place in the Isthmian South East Division having taken 8 points from as many games. Yet despite the odds of victory seemingly stacked in East Grinstead’s favour, Newhaven arguably produced their best performance of the season to push their visitors to the very limit. It was the Dockers who created the first clear opening of the game when Lee Robinson was played through on goal eight-minutes in, only to see his effort bounce off the post. Chances were few and far between in what was a largely cagey opening 45 minutes, w
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Three-points and a clean sheet

Newhaven 1 Pagham 0, SCFL Premier Division Match #11 After an unscheduled midweek break courtesy of the weather, the depleted Dockers were back in action yesterday afternoon with a home match against Pagham. While the Fort Road injury crisis has been well heralded, the squad suffered a further blow during the week as midfielder Ryan Warwick departed for Uckfield. However, for the first time in what seems like forever, there were no completely new players in the squad of 16 yesterday, which means our number of players used so far this campaign remains at a rather hefty 40. Pagham haven’t got off to the best of starts themselves this season, having collected just nine points from their opening 11 games, giving the Dockers every reason to feel this was a decent chance of collecting three points in spite of their personnel problems. After a fairly quiet opening ten minutes, the following ten were dominated by the hosts, and they will have reached the midway point of the first half wo
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Ten-men Dockers defeated after frantic start

Newhaven 2 Midhurst and Easebourne 3, SCFL Premier Division Match #10 Newhaven’s season hit something of a strange milestone yesterday afternoon, as centre midfielder Sam Geard became the 40th different player to don a first-team Dockers shirt this season. In case you need reminding, it’s not even the end of September yet! It’s fair to say that no-one could have foreseen this start to the season coming, with injuries really threatening to derail our season already. The mere thought of being able to field the same team twice in a row seems little more than a pipe dream right now and, unfortunately, the unfamiliarity of the players is unsurprisingly being taken advantage of by too many teams who, pre-season, we probably would have been expecting to beat. That said, the Dockers couldn’t have asked for a better start than the one they got against Midhurst. With barely two-minutes on the clock, the patched-up hosts took the lead. Tom Vickers’ fizzed in a cross from the left which wa
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Depleted Dockers comfortably defeated by United

Newhaven 0 Eastbourne United 1, SCFL Premier Division match #9 It’s fair to say that the 2024/25 season hasn’t exactly gone to plan for the Dockers thus far. With the season not even yet two-months old, a crippling injury list has seen Newhaven already use a staggering 39 different players in just 14 matches. It’s testament to everyone involved behind the scenes that the Dockers have managed to stay largely competitive in the opening weeks of the season, as unfamiliar 11s take to the field, many of whom have never played with each other – they quite often haven't even met each other – prior to kick-off. And following last night’s home-match against Eastbourne United there seems no sign of the injury crisis abating, with both Harry Reed and Jake Robinson departing the action before half-time with knee injuries. Even the management bench was depleted last night, with Sean Breach, Andy Cook and Tony Coade all absent from the dug-out. Seriously, whoever’s been running over thos
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Penalty heartbreak for out-of-luck Dockers

Newhaven 2 Lydd Town2, Lydd win 4-2 on penalties, FA Vase 2 nd Qualifying Round After five straight away games, the Dockers returned to Fort Road on Saturday afternoon as they hosted SCEFL Premier Division side Lydd Town in the FA Vase. Lydd currently sit 16 th in their division, with seven points from their opening eight matches, suggesting Newhaven should have felt confident about taking a positive step on the long road to Wembley. However, with the Docker’s absentee list seemingly growing by the week rather than shrinking, one gets the feeling that not much is likely to be straight forward this season. Not for a few months at least. The Dockers struggled to get to grips with Lydd’s physical direct style in the early exchanges, with the visitors clearly looking to target Newhaven’s 16-year-old keeper Johnny Barnes-Galloway, who stood up well to the challenge. It was the visitors who missed the game’s first clear-cut opportunity, one of their players skying over the bar from
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