#COYD - Come on You Dockers

Westfield 3 Newhaven 4, Sussex Senior Cup First Round, Tuesday 8 th September 2026 Following two league defeats on the trot, Newhaven travelled to Westfield on Tuesday night for a match in the opening round of the Sussex Senior Cup. In need of a confidence-boosting win, the Dockers fielded a strong (although far from full-strength) starting line-up against their lower division opponents, who have made a consistently inconsistent start to the season; winning two, losing two and drawing two of their opening six matches. However, any Newhaven fans hoping for a comfortable night watching the team play their way back into some degree of form were to have their hopes swiftly dashed as Westfield made a strong start to the match. The hosts were ahead within five minutes, as Jonny Barnes-Galloway could only parry a fiercely struck shot, leaving George Murphy with the simple task of tapping home from close-range. Tyler Capon and Lee Robinson both missed tricky half-chances to equalise f...

Lancing 3 Newhaven 1, SCFL Premier Division Match #6, Saturday 5 th September 2026 Warning. Spoiler alert. This is not going to be the longest blog I’ve ever written. Nor is it going to be the most enjoyable. Not, that is, if you are of a Newhaven persuasion. The Dockers travelled to Lancing on Saturday keen to put Monday’s first league defeat of the season firmly behind them. We may have been beaten 5-1 by Haywards Heath on the Bank Holiday, but that defeat wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the scoreline may suggest. In fact, up until the final 25 minutes of that game, we’d been well in it, before it quickly unravelled late-on. With a (mostly) young Lancing team having only taken three points from their opening six matches, hopes were high that Newhaven could bounce quickly back to form with a morale-boosting win. Needless to say, that’s not what happened. There can be no denying that, to a man, the Dockers were miles off it on Saturday. Lancing simply looked hungrier th...

Newhaven 1 Haywards Heath 5, SCFL Premier Division Match #5, Monday 31 st August 2026 No one said it was going to be easy. After a packed opening month of the season, Newhaven hosted Haywards Heath on Bank Holiday Monday. With injuries already biting hard – Matt Gunn and Joe Radley-Martin both joined George McCarthy, Noah Hoffmann, Tyler Capon, Billy Oliver, and Lee Robinson to name but a few on the unavailable list for this fixture – it’s fair to say that a match against many people’s pre-season title favourites wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered. (And we've being seeing a lot of the doctor!). True, Heath have their injury issues as well. But I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that one of these team’s playing budgets may be better equipped to deal with such issues than the other. Nevertheless, the Dockers started this game fairly well. After an early penalty appeal was waved away, Max Vardy went close with a shot from the edge of the area that was well turned over...

Newhaven 1 Horsham YM 0, SCFL Premier Division match #4, Saturday 29 th August 2026 Newhaven kicked-off August Bank Holiday weekend with a home match against Horsham YM. Just a few weeks ago, this fixture was probably viewed as being one of the most challenging of our early league matches. YM were many people’s favourites for a play-off place at the very least, having reached the post season matches last season and then further strengthened during the summer. Come yesterday, though, no one knew quite what to expect from our visitors. A very early-season manager departure was followed by a player exodus, leaving YM to field a virtual team of kids in their past few games. A new manager appointment in the week brought with it a large influx of new signings in time for yesterday’s match. Staggeringly, after yesterday’s game YM have already used 51 players this season! We’re not even through the first month! Hence, no one knew quite what to expect from yesterday’s game! Especia...

Newhaven 4 AFC Varndeanians 1, Peter Bentley Cup Round 2, Tuesday 25 th August 2026 Newhaven returned to Fort Road last night, looking to bounce back from Saturday’s disappointing FA Cup defeat at Whitstable. However, doing so appeared to be a far from straight forward task. On paper, at least. With injuries already playing havoc with Newhaven’s season, the management have been forced to bring in reinforcements. Step forward Harvey Wheeler and Thomas Sekyere (from Burgess Hill) and Matt Feeney-Hill (from Forest Row). All three were thrust straight into the starting 11 last night, against an AFC Varndeanians team who have made a very solid start to the season. Given the many changes made to last night’s team, the Dockers could have been forgiven for looking slightly disjointed.  Not a bit of it. If anything, the first 45 minutes of yesterday’s match was as good as anything Newhaven have produced yet this season (at least in the games that I’ve seen). The three new signing...

Whitstable Town 5 Newhaven 0, FA Cup Preliminary Round, Saturday 22 nd August 2026 The road to Wembley is officially shut. Well, for us it is, anyway. Not that it was ever really open following last week’s FA Vase defeat against Guernsey. But one can always dream. The Preliminary Round of the FA Cup, saw us make the lengthy journey to Whitstable Town in Kent. A side who not only play at a higher level, but one that has actually successfully traversed the long and winding road to Wembley. And even conquered it. They won the FA Vase a couple of seasons ago. As ever, a long journey brought with it what has become the customary annual coach trip. A trip that, this year, I was unfortunately unable to make due to a post-game engagement. Well, I say unfortunately. Given that the coach left Fort Road at 10:30, and didn’t actually arrive at the ground until just gone 14:00 (due to a closure on the M20), maybe being forced to miss the coach trip this year wasn’t such a bad thing. The te...