#COYD - Come on You Dockers

Eastbourne United 4 Newhaven 2, SCFL Premier Division match #7, Saturday 12 th September 2026 On the back of two league defeats, and a narrow cup victory over a lower division side, the last thing we needed right now was a trip to league leaders Eastbourne United. Bucking the trend of previous seasons, where United have been traditionally tight at the back but haven’t tended to score enough, this year they are simply flying, With 29 goals scored from their opening eight games (ten more that the division’s next highest scorers) this was always going to be a tough task for a Dockers side still dogged by injuries to key players. With many of a Newhaven persuasion fearing the worst, the Dockers actually made a strong start to the game, with both sides cancelling each other out in the early exchanges, The game’s opening goal arrived in the 24 th minutes and went the way of Newhaven.  Excellent work from Ryan Blunt down the left (which included another great advantage played by...

Westfield 3 Newhaven 4, Sussex Senior Cup First Round, Tuesday 8 th September 2026 Following two league defeats on the trot, Newhaven travelled to Westfield on Tuesday night for a match in the opening round of the Sussex Senior Cup. In need of a confidence-boosting win, the Dockers fielded a strong (although far from full-strength) starting line-up against their lower division opponents, who have made a consistently inconsistent start to the season; winning two, losing two and drawing two of their opening six matches. However, any Newhaven fans hoping for a comfortable night watching the team play their way back into some degree of form were to have their hopes swiftly dashed as Westfield made a strong start to the match. The hosts were ahead within five minutes, as Jonny Barnes-Galloway could only parry a fiercely struck shot, leaving George Murphy with the simple task of tapping home from close-range. Tyler Capon and Lee Robinson both missed tricky half-chances to equalise f...

Lancing 3 Newhaven 1, SCFL Premier Division Match #6, Saturday 5 th September 2026 Warning. Spoiler alert. This is not going to be the longest blog I’ve ever written. Nor is it going to be the most enjoyable. Not, that is, if you are of a Newhaven persuasion. The Dockers travelled to Lancing on Saturday keen to put Monday’s first league defeat of the season firmly behind them. We may have been beaten 5-1 by Haywards Heath on the Bank Holiday, but that defeat wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the scoreline may suggest. In fact, up until the final 25 minutes of that game, we’d been well in it, before it quickly unravelled late-on. With a (mostly) young Lancing team having only taken three points from their opening six matches, hopes were high that Newhaven could bounce quickly back to form with a morale-boosting win. Needless to say, that’s not what happened. There can be no denying that, to a man, the Dockers were miles off it on Saturday. Lancing simply looked hungrier th...

Newhaven 1 Haywards Heath 5, SCFL Premier Division Match #5, Monday 31 st August 2026 No one said it was going to be easy. After a packed opening month of the season, Newhaven hosted Haywards Heath on Bank Holiday Monday. With injuries already biting hard – Matt Gunn and Joe Radley-Martin both joined George McCarthy, Noah Hoffmann, Tyler Capon, Billy Oliver, and Lee Robinson to name but a few on the unavailable list for this fixture – it’s fair to say that a match against many people’s pre-season title favourites wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered. (And we've being seeing a lot of the doctor!). True, Heath have their injury issues as well. But I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that one of these team’s playing budgets may be better equipped to deal with such issues than the other. Nevertheless, the Dockers started this game fairly well. After an early penalty appeal was waved away, Max Vardy went close with a shot from the edge of the area that was well turned over...

Newhaven 1 Horsham YM 0, SCFL Premier Division match #4, Saturday 29 th August 2026 Newhaven kicked-off August Bank Holiday weekend with a home match against Horsham YM. Just a few weeks ago, this fixture was probably viewed as being one of the most challenging of our early league matches. YM were many people’s favourites for a play-off place at the very least, having reached the post season matches last season and then further strengthened during the summer. Come yesterday, though, no one knew quite what to expect from our visitors. A very early-season manager departure was followed by a player exodus, leaving YM to field a virtual team of kids in their past few games. A new manager appointment in the week brought with it a large influx of new signings in time for yesterday’s match. Staggeringly, after yesterday’s game YM have already used 51 players this season! We’re not even through the first month! Hence, no one knew quite what to expect from yesterday’s game! Especia...

Newhaven 4 AFC Varndeanians 1, Peter Bentley Cup Round 2, Tuesday 25 th August 2026 Newhaven returned to Fort Road last night, looking to bounce back from Saturday’s disappointing FA Cup defeat at Whitstable. However, doing so appeared to be a far from straight forward task. On paper, at least. With injuries already playing havoc with Newhaven’s season, the management have been forced to bring in reinforcements. Step forward Harvey Wheeler and Thomas Sekyere (from Burgess Hill) and Matt Feeney-Hill (from Forest Row). All three were thrust straight into the starting 11 last night, against an AFC Varndeanians team who have made a very solid start to the season. Given the many changes made to last night’s team, the Dockers could have been forgiven for looking slightly disjointed.  Not a bit of it. If anything, the first 45 minutes of yesterday’s match was as good as anything Newhaven have produced yet this season (at least in the games that I’ve seen). The three new signing...

Whitstable Town 5 Newhaven 0, FA Cup Preliminary Round, Saturday 22 nd August 2026 The road to Wembley is officially shut. Well, for us it is, anyway. Not that it was ever really open following last week’s FA Vase defeat against Guernsey. But one can always dream. The Preliminary Round of the FA Cup, saw us make the lengthy journey to Whitstable Town in Kent. A side who not only play at a higher level, but one that has actually successfully traversed the long and winding road to Wembley. And even conquered it. They won the FA Vase a couple of seasons ago. As ever, a long journey brought with it what has become the customary annual coach trip. A trip that, this year, I was unfortunately unable to make due to a post-game engagement. Well, I say unfortunately. Given that the coach left Fort Road at 10:30, and didn’t actually arrive at the ground until just gone 14:00 (due to a closure on the M20), maybe being forced to miss the coach trip this year wasn’t such a bad thing. The te...

Forest Row 0 Newhaven 2, FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round, Friday 7 th August 2026 The season may be less than a week old, but on Friday night Newhaven faced their third game of the fledgling campaign, travelling to Three Bridges for an FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie against league rivals Forest Row. Wembley may still be some way off yet, but it’s still nice for non-league clubs to have an early-season FA Cup run. Not least for the additional finances traversing a few rounds brings to a club. With Row starting the season with just one point from their opening two league games, hopes were high that Newhaven could keep their unbeaten start to the season going, and make it to the heady heights of the Preliminary Round. Following two hard-fought games in a matter of days, the Dockers management opted to shuffle the pack somewhat for this encounter, making a few changes to Tuesday night’s starting 11. The pack was then further shuffled moments before kick-off when goalkeeper Leo ...

Hassocks 1 Newhaven 2, SCFL Premier Division Match #2, Tuesday 4 th August 2026 Football is well and truly back! We’ve not yet reached the end of the first week in August and we’re already two league games down. Following hot-on-the-heels of Saturday’s home draw with Crawley Down Gatwick, was a jaunt to Hassocks; a team widely being tipped for an immediate return to the Isthmian League. It’s no secret that it was results (or lack thereof) against the teams towards the top end of the table that ultimately cost us a potential play-off berth last season. This was an early opportunity to show that we’ve learned lessons from that campaign, and that we can at least compete with the best teams in the league. On a perfect evening for football, it was the Dockers who made the more positive start. Although early chances were few and far between, Newhaven did manage to force a succession of corners which ultimately went unrewarded. For their part, Hassocks seemed to be finding it hard ...

Newhaven 1 Crawley Down Gatwick 1, SCFL Premier Division Match #1, Saturday 1 st August 2026 It may be just me, but I’m sure every year the football off-season seems to get shorter and shorter. Maybe it’s because the World Cup only finished less than two weeks ago. Maybe it’s an age thing. The older I get the quicker time seems to fly (I swear it was only Christmas a month or so ago). Whatever the reason, the fact remains. Football is back. And most of us wouldn’t have it any other way. Saturday saw Newhaven kick the 2026/27 SCFL season off with a home match against Crawley Down Gatwick. In what many are expecting to be one of the most open divisions for many years, both the Dockers and the Anvils have gone under the radar when it comes to pre-season predictions. No one seems sure quite what to expect from either team. From the Dockers perspective, though, pre-season has been largely positive. Yes, a few players have left – that goes with the territory at this level. But the m...

Newhaven 3 Horsham YM 5, SCFL Premier Division match #38, Saturday 25 th April 2026 And so, in what seems like a blink of an eye, the 2025/26 season is confined to the past It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I attended the first pre-season friendly back in the summer; leaving that game as part of a fanbase convinced we were in for a season of real struggle. What a difference nine months makes. While there may have been nothing of great note riding on our final league match of the campaign – a hugely creditable 8 th place finish having already been secured – the fact is that everyone involved in the club can look back on this season with will pride. A young side, many of whom were playing their first full year of senior football, have acquitted themselves superbly, and but for a lack of consistency, we could have made a stronger push for the play-offs that we ultimately ended up doing. In front of a decent-sized crowd on Saturday, Newhaven hosted Horsham YM, a side who...

Haywards Heath 4 Newhaven 3, SCFL Premier Division match #37, Saturday 18 th April 2026 Newhaven’s penultimate match of the season saw us travel to title-chasing Haywards Heath. While this match may have been something of a dead rubber from our perspective, for the hosts it was anything but. Anything but three points would see Steyning claim the title if they could overcome Peacehaven in a game that was taking place at the same time. However, while there may have not been any real pressure on the young Dockers, this was the ideal opportunity for us to show that we really can compete against the very best teams in the league. It has been our results against the teams in and around the play-off places (a victory away to Horsham YM being the exception) that has ultimately cost us our own shot at the play-offs this season. And all too often these defeats have been damning in how comfortably we’ve been brushed aside. With this game pretty much a free-hit, here was the chance to...