Promising display sees Dockers advance

Newhaven 2 Forest Row 0, Sussex Senior Cup Round 1, Tuesday 9^th September 2025

The first in a run of three consecutive cup matches took place last night with Forest Row’s visit to Fort Road in the opening round of the Sussex Senior Cup.

Newly promoted Forest Row have enjoyed a positive start at a higher level, although did arrive in Newhaven on the back of a hefty defeat to title favourites Haywards Heath on Saturday.

With the Dockers missing a few key players, this was arguably Newhaven’s toughest test so far this season. A real test to see exactly where we are at.

Having scraped to three points on Saturday after a largely unconvincing performance at struggling Wick, it was almost certain a similar showing would get punished last night.

Fortunately, last night saw a much-improved Dockers performance. Arguably their finest of the campaign so far.

It was without doubt the best game to watch involving Newhaven this year as well, with both teams looking to play good football, and creating plenty of chances. Especially in the first-half.

The Dockers almost got off to the perfect start in the first minute, when the hard-working Billy Oliver raced through only to be denied by a good save.

Within a minute or two, Roman Chiosa was called into action as Forest Row threatened, before moments later their player screwed a shot wastefully wide from the edge of the six-yard box.

Oliver then had another sighter but could only shoot wide from distance with the keeper stranded well off his line.

Seven minutes had elapsed and it could already easily have been 2-2.

In the 15^th minute, Row passed up probably what was to be the best chance of the first-half. They got a little fortunate as a tackle deflected right into the path of their player on the edge of the six-yard box, but luckily for us he shot wide when he should have hit the target at the very minimum.

A minute later, Elliott Bresciani went close when he got on the end of corner, but could only steer his effort wide.

Still the chances continued to come. Good work from Teddy Wood set up the hugely impressive 17-year-old Dash Callen-Dickens (playing his second 90-minutes in the space of 24-hours), and his fierce shot only missed the target by a matter of inches.

The rolls were reversed seconds later, when Callen-Dickens pulled the ball back to Wood, who couldn’t get enough on his shot to cause the Forest Row keeper an issue.

On 35 minutes Wood missed another half-chance after industrious work from Pacey Bean, before Chiosa was called into action again, pulling off a brilliant save from an equally brilliant long-range strike just before half-time.

Somehow, it was goalless at the interval. No-one watching was quite sure how.

The second-half, while still entertaining, was decidedly less-packed with goalmouth incidents, with the Dockers largely starting to control the flow of the game.

Seven minutes after the restart, the hosts were adamant that they should have had a penalty when Ezra Roeg appeared to be shoved over in the area. Nothing doing said the referee, much to a general sense of disbelief around Fort Road.

Just after the hour-mark, the Dockers made the breakthrough. A patiently worked move involving all of our attacking players culminated with Tommy Jupp (who had only been on the pitch for three minutes) squeezing a low effort past the keeper and into the net.

Forest Row tried to look for a way back into the game but, in truth, they couldn’t rediscover their attacking verve of the first-half. Our centre-half pairing of Bresciani and Richmond Osei were first to every ball, and contained the visitors to half-chances from range.

With 20 minutes remaining, Roeg almost picked out Jupp for a second, but his header was just over.

Three minutes later, Roeg tumbled in the area for a second time, under what appeared to be minimal contact. On this occasion the ref did point to the spot. Much to a general sense of disbelief around Fort Road.

With regular taker Harry Hammond rested – and 499-goal striker Lee Robinson on holiday – Roeg himself stepped up and drilled the ball low into the corner to double our advantage.

It was a goal that gave the Dockers the cushion their second-half display had deserved, and Forest Row never really looked like finding a way back into the game. Aside from having to field a couple of crosses, I can’t remember Chiosa being called into meaningful action at all in the second-half.

So another win to enjoy for Newhaven fans, and this one had the performance to go alongside it.

There’s no game Saturday due to our scheduled opponent Steyning’s continued involvement in the FA Cup, so we now don’t play again until next Tuesday evening, when we make the short trip west to take on local-rivals Peacehaven in the RUR Cup.

We are then back at home on Saturday 20^th September when we take on the rather bizarrely named Faversham Strike Force (yes, they’re a football team, not a cricket team from The Hundred) in the FA Vase.

Some more cup progress would be great, before we return to the bread and butter of league action on Tuesday 23^rd September when we take on Shoreham.

Your support, as ever, will be much appreciated.

Come On You Dockers!

 My man of the match (aka, the controversial part): Elliott Bresciani. Probably the hardest one to pick so far this season, as literally everyone could have been in with a shout. However, the commanding centre back gets my vote for what was, in my opinion, his best performance in a Dockers shirt. Special mentions go to Dash Callen-Dickens, who was brilliant on his first senior start, and Tristan Jarvis, who got through the entire 90-minutes despite being way short of match fitness.