#COYD - Come on You Dockers

Little Common 0 Newhaven 1, SCFL Premier Division match #33 Newhaven travelled to Little Common on Saturday afternoon for an unlikely battle between two of the division’s most in form teams. It just shows how quickly things can change around. When this fixture was postponed just a few weeks ago, the Dockers were struggling for form while Little Common looked to be dead and buried at the foot of the league. Come Saturday, though, Newhaven were on a run of five successive victories, while Little Common had taken ten points from a possible 15 to propel themselves just outside of the relegation zone on goal difference. In fairness, the subsequent encounter won’t live overly long in the memory. On a blustery sunny Spring afternoon, on a typical bobbly end of season grass pitch, it would be fair to say that both teams struggled to get to grips with the conditions. Moments of quality were few and far between. In fact, probably the only true moment of quality occurred in the fifth-mi...

Newhaven 3 Wick 1, SCFL Premier Division match #32 Newhaven welcomed Wick to Fort Road on Saturday afternoon, Non-League Day, hoping to extend their winning streak to a season’s best five games. Wick, though, came into the match on a decent run of form of their own, having won four on the trot before that run was halted by Peacehaven last weekend. Newhaven bossed much of the opening stages of this one, without creating too much in ways of opportunities. Wick looked happy to absorb the pressure and hit on the counter with the Dockers not having to do all that much defending early on. The hosts took the lead just before the 20-minute mark. Despite Wick’s player’s vocal appeals for an offside (they vocally appealed for most things to be fair, but on this rare occasion they probably had a point), Lee Robinson casually gathered a clever flick from elder brother Jake, before despatching the ball into the corner. No off-side flag was raised, much to the visiting team’s annoyance and the...

Pagham 1 Newhaven 2, SCFL Premier Division match #31 The sequence is over. Finally. Our last 15 league games had produced a run of three wins, three losses, three wins, three losses and three wins.  Meaning that yesterday’s visit to Pagham was surely to be the first in the latest series of three losses, right? Well, no, thankfully. The Dockers emerged from their long trip to Pagham with three points and an unprecedented (this season anyway) fourth consecutive league win.  And all without the absent trio of Jake Robinson, Ian Robinson, and Ryan Warwick. Impressive indeed. Okay, so it may not have been a vintage performance. Far from it, in fact.  But for the first time in quite a while yesterday afternoon, Newhaven won a match in which they were second-best for much of the game, showing a grit and determination that has been absent all too often throughout this season. After a non-eventful and instantly forgettable opening ten minutes, it was the Dockers who actu...

Newhaven 5 Shoreham 1, SCFL Premier Division match #30 The Dockers welcomed Shoreham to Fort Road yesterday afternoon, looking for their third consecutive league victory. With Shoreham struggling near the foot of the table, and on a poor run of form, the signs were good that Newhaven could keep their current run going. The team’s recent run of results also hinted at their being a decent chance that Newhaven would claim three more points. In their previous 14 games the Dockers had won three in a row, lost three in a row, won another three in a row, lost another three in a row and were currently on a two-match winning run. Could they make the unusual pattern continue? The answer to that question was abundantly clear from the outset as Newhaven largely dominated form start to finish. The hosts took the lead just before the quarter-of-an-hour mark as two Robinson brothers combined yet again towards a Newhaven goal. This time it was the combination of Ian and Lee that paved the wa...

Newhaven 4 Lingfield 1, SCFL Premier Division match #29 After an enforced lay-off last week due to Little Common’s waterlogged pitch, Newhaven were back in action yesterday, as Lingfield visited Fort Road for the second time this season. The previous meeting back in November was classed as Lingfield’s home game, and resulted in a single-goal victory for the Dockers. Back then, the Lingers were looking like a side destined for a relegation battle. However, they arrived at Fort Road yesterday as one of the division’s form teams; unbeaten since Boxing Day and having beaten play-off chasing Haywards Heath in their last outing. Yet it was Newhaven, whose last match was a 3-0 victory at Horsham YMCA, who started the game in the ascendancy. Two early chances came and went for Newhaven before Alfie Rogers was pulled down for what appeared to be a stonewall penalty, only for the referee to rather surprisingly wave the appeal away. The Dockers kept pouring forward, though, and when the...