Season ends in play-off heartbreak

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 82^nd 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 grâce 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.