#COYD - Come on You Dockers

Newhaven 2 Steyning 3, SCFL Premier Division match #13, Tuesday 28 th October 2025 What had already been a tough month of fixtures continued on Tuesday evening, with the visit of high-flying Steyning to Fort Road. Sitting in third place prior to the match, and with just two defeats so far this season, it seems likely that if anyone is likely to challenge runaway leader’s Haywards Heath charge to the title, Steyning seem the most likely to do so. Fielding a rejigged starting 11 from Saturday’s disappointing defeat at Eastbourne United, Newhaven new they couldn’t start as slowly this time round. And they didn’t. In fact, we were close to making a perfect start when we were awarded a penalty in just the second minute (in truth, we probably should have scored in the same passage of play that led to the penalty, only for Ezra Roeg’s effort to be cleared off the line). Unfortunately, in what has become a bit of a recurring theme this season, we faltered from 12-yards, with Tom How...

Eastbourne United 5 Newhaven 3, SCFL Premier Division match #12, Saturday 25 th October 2025 Having been downed by Bexhill United last weekend, Newhaven were looking to bounce back to form when they visited Eastbourne United yesterday afternoon. It’s fair to say that The Oval has not been the happiest of hunting grounds for the Dockers over the past few seasons, and there was no reason to believe that things would get any easier this season. After a slow start to their campaign, United came into this match with just one defeat in their last seven games; and that a narrow 1-0 defeat against all conquering Haywards Heath. One thing Newhaven didn’t need yesterday was to start slowly and hand their hosts any sort of initiative. So when in just the second minute a miscommunication between Bailie Rogers and Roman Chiosa led to United taking the lead the signs were ominous. A back-pass from Rogers to Chiosa was closed down by James Hull, Chiosa’s attempted clearance struck Hull and...

Horsham YMCA 1 Newhaven 2, SCFL Premier Division match #10, Saturday 11 th October 2025 Having been on the receiving end of a couple of hefty back-to-back league defeats, albeit interspersed with a couple of cup victories, Newhaven headed to Horsham YMCA yesterday looking to reignite their league season. It was never going to be an easy task. Going into the game in third place, YM’s season has been broadly similar to our own. They’ve beaten the teams you would expect them to beat, but have come a cropper when playing some of the division’s stronger teams; having been beaten soundly by both Haywards Heath and Steyning, and narrowly by Bexhill. From the get go it was clear to see there wasn’t much between the two sides yesterday, with credit once again needing to be paid to the youthful Dockers squad. Skipper for the day Ryan Blunt was the squad’s third oldest player at the grand old age of 20! It was Blunt who came closest to opening the scoring in the early exchanges. On 13 mi...

Newhaven 5 Seaford Town 1, Sussex Senior Challenge Cup Round Two, Tuesday 7 th October 2025 Local derbies are hard enough. Local derbies when you’re coming off the back of a heavy defeat, while your opponents have plundered 10 goals in their last two games are harder still. Yet that was the challenge facing Newhaven last night as neighbours Seaford visited Fort Road in a cup competition for the second time this season. In the last meeting between the two sides back in early September, Newhaven breezed past ‘The Harriers’ 2-0 in the Peter Bentley Cup. Since that meeting, though, Seaford’s form has improved and they came into the game with four wins from seven games in all competitions. Indeed, this confidence was on show in the early stages last night as Seaford showed their willingness to go toe-to-toe with the Dockers. While Newhaven were certainly producing the tidier, more eye-catching football, it was the visitors who created the better chances; the best of the early one...

Newhaven 0 Haywards Heath 4, SCFL Premier Division match #4, Saturday October 4 th 2025 After an extremely mixed seven days result-wise, the Dockers faced arguably their toughest test this season to date, with the visit of Haywards Heath to Fort Road on Saturday. Prior to the season, Heath were many people’s (including mine) tip for the championship, and they’re certainly living up to the hype, with a 100 per cent win rate from their opening nine league games. Boasting a squad (and, let’s be honest, a budget) that’s the envy of many in the division, on paper it’s hard to see a weakness in the Heath armoury. And it turns out it’s pretty hard to see one on the pitch, too. Newhaven went into the game with a clear plan. To be compact and try to stop the visitors from playing through us. In fairness, on this count, the young Dockers did extremely well. While the league leaders were certainly dominant and saw plenty of the ball throughout, they didn’t exactly pepper Roman Chiosa’s g...

Crawley Down Gatwick 1 Newhaven 2, Peter Bentley Cup Round Three, Tuesday 30 th September 2025 It’s probably fair to say that Saturday’s trip to Guernsey didn’t go quite as well as hoped. Either on pitch or off. However, as I wasn’t there to witness proceedings, to my mind it never happened so we’ll just conveniently gloss over those events and move on. As mentioned in a report a couple of week’s ago, the true test for this young Dockers team is how quickly they can recover from setbacks. To coin a phrase first used by the Northern Irish Adonis Iain Dowie some years ago, ‘bouncebackability’ is the key. Last night’s trip to Crawley Down Gatwick in the Peter Bentley Cup gave the boys a chance to wipe what happened in the Channel Islands from their collective memories and move on with their season. Having already been to The Haven once this season, playing out a 2-2 draw in a proverbial game of two halves back in mid-August, hopes were high that we could get back to winning ways ...