Eastbourne Town 2 Newhaven 0, SCFL Premier Division Play-off Final
After a long, gruelling season it all came down to one game.
90-minutes that would decide whether we would finally
realise our promotion dream.
In fairness, the task in playing Eastbourne Town, at their place, could not have been more
difficult.
Since the turn of the year, Town have been absolutely flying. Turning themselves from a team struggling to make the play-offs into
one that ultimately finished runners-up.
Conversely, the Dockers form had dipped in recent weeks,
meaning Town went into the play-off final, not only with home advantage, but
with momentum firmly on their side.
The sizable Dockers contingent that contributed towards a
bumper Saffrons crowd – there were well over 1,000 in attendance and, happily,
not an ounce of trouble to report – hoped that for 90-minutes the form book
could be tossed out of the window.
Alas, it couldn’t.
Town started the brighter of the two teams. Former Docker James
Waters was just off target with an acrobatic bicycle kick early on, while Jake Buss made
a good save (how many times have I typed that this season?) to deny Ollie
Davies.
After 20 minutes, Newhaven began to settle as the game turned
decidedly more even – and a whole lot nervier.
However, despite finding a foothold in the game, Newhaven were
still finding chances hard to come by. Alfie Rogers had a long-range free-kick
comfortably held by Chris Winterton, while Lee Robinson was crowded out when it
looked, just for a second, that he might be in on goal.
Then, six minutes before half-time, it was the Dockers who went
closest to grabbing the opening goal. Even now, writing this a couple of days later,
I’m still not quite sure how we didn’t manage to force the ball into the net,
as Town twice cleared it off the line in the matter of seconds following an
almighty goalmouth scramble.
Up the other end, the hosts had what looked to be a very decent
shout for a penalty waved away (I was up the other end, but it looked like one
to me), but at half-time there was to be no advantage to either side.
The Dockers started the second-half far brighter than they
had the first, for the first time beginning to look like posing a threat from
open-play.
Ten minutes after the restart we had what was to prove to be
our best chance of the half. Callum Edwards burst through on goal, tried to
chip Winterton, but the keeper just about managed to get enough on the ball to
tip it inches over the bar.
With 20 minutes remaining, the game was firmly in the
balance, with neither side having really stamped their authority on it. At this
stage it could have gone either way.
However, during that last 20 minutes, the pendulum swung firmly in Town’s favour.
The Dockers just couldn’t get out. The efforts of a
relatively small squad over a long, hard season looked to have finally caught
up with the boys. The heart was there. The effort was there. The legs,
unfortunately, just weren’t.
Penalties suddenly looked like our best hope, just as it had on Tuesday night in Crowborough.
When Town missed two gilt-edged chances within minutes of
each other with 15-minutes left, there was hope that we might just see it
through.
However, in the 82nd minute, Ollie Davies – who had
only moments earlier spurned one of those aforementioned gilt-edged
opportunities - headed a cross from the right into the net.
If that wasn’t quite the killer blow, then the coup de
grĂ¢ce was delivered just two minutes later. This time a cross from the left
was met by the head of recently arrived sub, James Stone – although how much
about he knew about it is hard to say – and the ball looped agonisingly past
the despairing grasp of Buss to send the Town players, bench and fans into
raptures.
The game – the season – was up and Newhaven knew it. The
Dockers had given it their all, but had come up just short.
Come full-time, there was little argument that Town were
fully deserving of their victory. I wish them nothing but the best of luck for
the coming season and can only hope that we join them in the Isthmian League very soon.
The sense of disappointment that engulfed the entire
Newhaven contingent come the final whistle was palpable. For the third season
in a row, we’d come so, so close. For the third season in a row, though, so close just
wasn’t quite close enough.
However, now the dust has settled on the defeat, it’s
important to put things into context.
While promotion this season was the aim (as it always is and
always should be), come the start of the season few would have expected us to
have realistically gone as close as we did. I really wish I’d kept some of the tweets I
received last summer telling me we’d be nothing more than mid-table cannon
fodder!
A mass exodus of some of our best players at the end of last
season meant that the management had to put together a fresh squad of players
on a pretty meagre budget (certainly a great deal lower than some of the teams
that finished below us).
That they did this, managing to replace quality with quality throughout, is great testament to the effort Sean Breach and Andy Cook (along with the other coaches) put in all-year round. Not to mention, the reputation the gaffers have built throughout Sussex football.
Ultimately, the squad was probably just a
bit too small to achieve our goals (not helped by numerous injuries, of course, not
least to that of Ian Robinson in January, whose absence in the final few months
was a huge miss to the team).
Who knows what the coming months hold? I know I speak for
all Newhaven fans when I say hopefully, the management and the core of the team
will stay together for another season, feeling refreshed and ready to go again
in July.
We can only thank of them for their efforts. I’ve seen
Tweets from various people associated with the club apologising for not getting
us over the line. There really is no need. The great thing about football is
there’s always next season.
Its going to happen one day. Keep believing.
So until next season.
Come On You Dockers!
My man of the match (aka, the controversial part): Callum Edwards. Always appeared to be Newhaven’s best attacking outlet, and worked tirelessly down the flank.
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