Dockers stunned by Steyning

 Steyning Town 2 Newhaven 1, SCFL Premier Division, match #1

Real league football is back!

Yes, I know the Premier League still doesn’t get going for another week (The Charity Community Shield doesn’t count as real football; it’s just a glorified friendly – although it might mean a little bit more this year than normal 😉), but for supporters of EFL clubs and a number of non-league fans throughout the country, today marked the start of what will undoubtedly be nine-months of joy, frustration and maybe even tears.  

The Dockers, starting the season with three away fixtures while the finishing touches are applied to the fantastic new playing surface at Fort Road, travelled west to Steyning for their season opener.

Nice of the fixture gods to schedule a match on a surface similar to that which is being laid at Newhaven’s home ground. A perfect chance to get further used to playing on the Astro ahead of the team’s first home match on 23^rd August! (And more practice may be needed if today’s match is anything to go by).  

After a positive pre-season (five matches, five wins), the Dockers went into their opening match full of confidence.

It’s often said that teams shouldn’t read too much into pre-season. Admittedly, it’s usually said rather louder and with more gusto by those who have endured a poor pre-season rather than those who have enjoyed a good one but, judging by the opening 70 minutes of this afternoon’s match, those who espouse such rhetoric may have a point.

After some sublime performances in pre-season, the Dockers just couldn’t get going in Steyning.

In fact, were it not for some woefully bad finishing, the hosts could have been home and hosed with just 20 minutes on the clock.

As it was, the Barrowmen had to wait until the 21st minute before they took a deserved lead. For the umpteenth time in the game’s early stages, they were afforded far too much time in attack and when the ball arrived at Grant Radmore’s feet inside the box, he had time to produce a, for once, composed finish which gave Jake Buss no chance.

The goal, and ensuing drink’s break, did seem to provoke a brief reaction from the Dockers. Twice in the space of just a few minutes they should have grabbed what would have been an undeserved equaliser. 

First Lukas Franzen-Jones went round the keeper only to try and slide the ball to Alfie Rogers when a shot would have been a wiser option. Then Marley Ambler tried to be too cute with a close-range finish, when he would surely have been better served putting his foot through the ball.

The revival didn’t last long. Steyning soon regained control of the game; a factor made significantly easier than it should have been by the fact that there quite often wasn’t a Dockers player within ten yards of any of their players.

Yet another injury to Robbie Keith put the icing on the cake of what had been a poor first-half performance.

However, strange though it may sound, it could be argued that Newhaven would have been the happier side at half-time. They hadn’t played at all well – awfully, in fact – but were somehow still in a game they should have been well out of.

They couldn’t be that bad again, could they?

Within a minute of the restart, it seemed that they could. 

The Dockers defence failed to deal with a lofted ball forward, and Max Howell duly doubled the hosts’ lead.

For a while after this, not a lot happened. Steyning, as is often the case in these situations, began to sit back, looking to catch Newhaven on the break, while the Dockers huffed and puffed without creating any notable goalscoring opportunities.

Then, just over halfway through the half, the Dockers were handed an unlikely lifeline. Lee Robinson was clumsily hauled down in the area and Newhaven were awarded a spot-kick.

As anyone who has followed Newhaven regularly already knows, a penalty is far from a guarantee of a goal. It’s 50-50 at best. However, they do seem to like taking penalties at Steyning (they scored five out of five in a penalty shootout there last season). Franzen-Jones stepped up and emphatically smashed his shot into the top corner. Newhaven were back in the game.

What followed was Newhaven’s best 20 minutes of the match (although that's not saying much). Despite being temporarily reduced to ten-men following substitute Farrall Ryder being sent to the sin-bin for dissent, the Dockers started to apply some sustained pressure for the first time.

The Steyning goalkeeper produced a great double save to deny Robinson and Plummer, before a combination of goalkeeper, defender and crossbar kept out another Newhaven opportunity (couldn’t see who had it from where I was standing). The ref and his assistant waved away appeals that the ball had crossed the line, although my two sons (both 100 per cent impartial and unbiased witnesses, honest guv) who were standing behind the goal were adamant it should have been given. Where’s goal-line technology when you really need it?

With time almost up, Newhaven were awarded a free-kick right on the edge of the Steyning penalty area. Unfortunately, set-piece maestro Alfie Rogers couldn’t work his magic on this occasion and the last chance for Newhaven to undeservedly claim a point from the game was gone.

So not the start to the season Newhaven wanted. But these things do happen. Of course, the upside to losing the first game of the season is that there’s still 37 matches to put things right. Which I’m still fully confident they will. There’s simply too much talent in the squad for them not to.  

Attention now turns to the FA Cup, with the Dockers travelling to Canterbury (well, Sittingbourne) in the Extra Preliminary Round next weekend, before another away league trip to Crawley Down the following week.

As I said at the start of this post, real football is back!

Hello to having your weekends enhanced or ruined by what happens over 90 minutes on a Saturday afternoon! Let’s be honest, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

My MOM (aka, the controversial part): Erm… erm… erm… No one stood out, to be honest. I was just going to pull a name randomly out of a hat. But I couldn’t find a hat. That sort of perfectly sums up the afternoon.

So, over the coming season, my youngest son will be acting as a post-match interviewer, talking to both players and coaches. Here’s what co-manager Andy Cook had to say to him about today’s game…