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No Halloween horror show for five-star Dockers

Newhaven 5 Midhurst and Easebourne 0, SCFL Premier Division match #14, Saturday 31 st October 2026 Sometimes the right fixture comes along at just the right time. Having finally found our shooting boots in Tuesday night’s RUR Cup match against Crawley Down Gatwick, we now needed to keep that momentum going and claim a much-needed three-points in the league. Standing in the way of us making that happen were a struggling Midhurst and Easebourne team; a side without a win in any competition since 12 th September, and one that has conceded three goals or more in seven of their last eight games. If you could pick your own fixture right at this moment, then Midhurst at home would probably be somewhere near the top of the list. However, as we’ve found out many times over the years, there’s no such thing as a foregone conclusion in football. The Stags may have been there for the taking… But we still had to take them. From the off it was fairly clear that there was only likely to be...
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Six of the best for on-song Dockers

Newhaven 6 Crawley Down Gatwick 1, RUR Cup Second Round, Tuesday 27 th October 2026 On Tuesday night, we welcomed Crawley Down Gatwick to Fort Road for our second cup game against the same opposition in the space of a week. Having come out victorious in the Peter Bentley Cup seven days ago in Crawley Down, we were hoping to repeat the feat in the RUR Cup this time around. Following a frustrating Saturday afternoon in Lingfield (apologies for the lack of report on that one) where too many mistakes (officials included) ultimately cost us in a match that we actually played fairly well in, this was an opportunity to get back to winning ways. Just as we did in the match last Tuesday, the Dockers flew out of the box and raced into an early lead courtesy of Billy Oliver. With just four minutes on the clock, the in-form striker made space for himself just outside the area, before firing a low shot into the bottom corner. Things were to get even better barely a minute later. Newhav...
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Timely win for improving Dockers

Crawley Down Gatwick 1 Newhaven 2, Peter Bentley Cup Round Three, Tuesday 20 th October 2026 Having battled to hard-earned point away at Pagham on Saturday, Newhaven took to the road again last night to see if they could build on that promising display in the Peter Bentley Cup against Crawley Down Gatwick. The Peter Bentley Cup is a competition that the Dockers have thrived in over the past decade or so, and last night’s match gave the boys a chance to further build some confidence after a spell of indifferent form. Overcoming Crawley Down, though, would be far from straightforward. The Anvils currently sit a couple of places above us in the league, albeit having played a few games more, while their last home match saw them overcome current league leaders Haywards Heath 2-1. An opening day 1-1 draw at Fort Road, hinted that there’d be little to choose between the two teams last night. And so it proved. That said, had Newhaven been slightly more clinical, especially in the firs...
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Dockers hold on for deserved point

Pagham 1 Newhaven 1, SCFL Premier Division match #12, Saturday 17 th October 2026 After a much-needed ten-day break, Newhaven returned to action with a tricky long-distance trip to Pagham on Saturday. On a run of six league defeats in seven games, and with injuries still biting hard, the Dockers arrived in West Sussex desperate to come away with something to try and reignite their season. Pagham, though, have been flying in recent weeks, finding the net 14 times in their past three games, and currently sitting just outside the play-off places. Yet it was Newhaven who started the game by far the brighter of the two sides, controlling large periods of the opening half, and looking far more confident on the ball than they had for quite some time. The returning Pacey Bean went close to opening the scoring inside the opening ten minutes, when his curling corner was clawed off the line by the Pagham keeper. From my vantage point, it looked like the ball had hit the net, but having s...
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Problems mounting for struggling Dockers

Newhaven 1 Bexhill 4, SCFL Premier Division match #10, Sunday 4 th October 2026 Newhaven 1 Guernsey 3, SCFL Premier Division match #11, Tuesday 6 th October Two home games in the space of just over 48-hours gave the Dockers a great chance to kick-start their new season after a run of indifferent form. Instead, with no points coming from either of those two games, it’s now starting to look like what many had hoped to be a blip after a highly promising start to the season, may actually be something a little more serious. On Sunday afternoon, we entertained Bexhill United in what was the final part of the SCFL Groundhop Weekend. In front of a healthy crowd of just under 400, though, Newhaven failed to ever really awaken from their Sunday slumber. By the time I arrived at the ground (I was 15-minutes late due to my youngest’s own match that lunchtime) we were already a goal behind. ‘Calamitous defending’ was a description muttered to me a number of times as I made my way to my vant...
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Late goal denies Dockers a point

Newhaven 1 Roffey 2, SCFL Premier Division match #9, Saturday 26 th September 2026 Having finally bounced back to winning ways in the league seven days ago, Newhaven faced a tricky trip to Roffey looking to keep that momentum going. Roffey are a team that many have tipped to battle for a play-off berth this season, and have started the season looking like a side hoping to live up to that billing. Now playing at Horsham FC (which is a personal shame as I loved the ‘Theatre of Trees'; although obviously Horsham’s ground isn’t too shabby, either), the Boars are a team with a burgeoning reputation for fast-flowing possession football. The Dockers, still engulfed in the midst of a seemingly never-ending injury crisis (one that would get even worse by the end of this game), knew they’d have to be at their battling best to get something from it. And, oh my, they were so close to doing so. Despite the hosts seeing plenty of the ball in the early stages, it was Newhaven who actua...
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A Gritty but much-needed three points

Newhaven 2 Forest Row 1, SCFL Premier Division match #8, Saturday 19 th September 2026 Having visited the league leaders last weekend, it was a home match against the team at the opposite end of the table which awaited the Dockers this time out. On the back of three consecutive league defeats, following a four-match unbeaten start to the season, Newhaven were desperately looking for three-points to get their season back on schedule. In theory, a home match against bottom side Forest Row – a side we’ve already beaten in the FA Cup this season – should have been the ideal match in which to rediscover some form. But in a case of what seems to happen quite often to us, the previously winless Row picked up their league win of the season on Monday night (having progressed in the FA Vase a week earlier), meaning they actually entered this match on a better run of form than we did. Nevertheless, it was Newhaven who made much of the early running, albeit without really dominating proce...
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