THE OFFICIAL MATCHDAY PROGRAMME OF EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN FC | SEASON 2026|27 | ISSUE NO 4 | FREE
SOUTHERN COMBINATION FOOTBALL LEAGUE | PREMIER DIVISION SATURDAY 30 AUGUST 2026 | KICK OFF: 3PM
VS HASSOCKS SOUTHERN COMBINATION FOOTBALL LEAGUE | PREMIER DIVISION SATURDAY 30 AUGUST 2026 | KICK OFF 3PM
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN FC The Vistavis Community Stadium College Lane | East Grinstead | RH19 3LS Tel: 01342 325885
WELCOME TO EAST COURT Good afternoon and welcome to the players, officials and supporters who have travelled up from Hassocks. It was around this time last year that we travelled down there and 1-0. Who thought that afternoon that it would be our only league win of the season! Both clubs ended up being relegated and Hassocks have made the better start to this league campaign, although we seem to be finding our feet. The deserved win at Bognor last week was one of our best FA Cup results in a long time and has earned us a great tie (and hopefully a lucrative one) at Dulwich Hamlet next week. Before then a reminder that we face Forest Row here in the league on Bank Holiday Monday, kick off 11am. The FA Cup run is nice, but I'm sure we'd all prefer to win these two home games given the choice.
OWNERSHIP STATEMENT In accordance with the Football Association's Rule 2.13 (publication of ownership) in relation to Step 1 to Step 6 Clubs within the National League System East Grinstead Town FC is an unincorporated association / members club and a Community Amateur Sports Club (reg no CASC 02270).
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EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
FROM THE
Dugout Welcome back to the Vistavis community stadium for this afternoon's game against Hassocks. It’s been an interesting week. A win at home to Wick in the league, where we played well in the second half, was followed up by an amazing win at Bognor Regis Town in the FA Cup Pezza scoring twice at Bognor sealed a fantastic performance and gives us a nice tie next Saturday at Dulwich Hamlet. On Tuesday we drew 1-1 at Jarvis Brook and lost on penalties in the League Cup. We heavily rotated the squad but it showed our depth isn’t as great as people think as it was an extremely poor performance. Definitely a case of after the lord mayor's show following the performance at Bognor. Today will be tough. Firstly huge respect to James and his side. League winners two seasons ago, they are a club I respect massively. Today is equally as tough as we will miss through injury and unavailability seven or eight first team players That's not ideal however it will give the squad get a chance to prove themselves Get behind the boys and I hope you enjoy the game. Up the Wasps.
Andy
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
LEAGUE
STANDINGS
SOUTHERN COUNTIES LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION TEAM
PL
W
D
L
F
A
GD
PTS
1
Eastbourne United
5
3
1
1
15
7
8
10
2
Guernsey
4
3
1
0
7
2
5
10
3
Haywards Heath Town
4
3
1
0
7
3
4
10
4
Crawley Down Gatwick
5
2
2
1
10
8
2
7
5
Newhaven
3
2
1
0
5
3
2
7
6
AFC Varndeanians
4
2
1
1
6
5
1
7
7
Lingfield
4
2
1
1
11
11
0
7
8
Roffey
4
2
0
2
11
6
5
6
9
Hassocks
3
2
0
1
9
4
5
6
10 Midhurst
3
2
0
1
7
2
5
6
11
Bexhill United
3
2
0
1
4
2
2
6
12 East Grinstead Town
4
1
1
2
3
3
0
4
13 Horsham YMCA
4
1
1
2
7
8
-1
4
14 Pagham
2
1
0
1
5
3
2
3
15
2
1
0
1
3
6
-3
3
16 Seaford United
3
1
0
2
2
5
-3
3
17
Lancing
4
1
0
3
4
10
-6
3
18 Billingshurst
5
0
1
4
11
17
-6
1
19 Forest Row
5
0
1
4
6
15
-9
1
20 Little Common
3
0
0
3
2
14
-12
0
Wick
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
FIXTURES & RESULTS
Date
Venue
K/O / Score
Haywards Heath Town Guernsey Bexhill Town Crawley Down Gatwick Wick Bognor Regis Town Jarvis Brook Hassocks Forest Row
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier FA Cup extra prelim SCFL Premier SCFL Premier FA Cup prelim Peter Bentley Cup SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
0-0 0-1 3-0 0-1 3-1 2-1 1-1 (3-4 3pm 11am
A H A H A H
Crawley Down Gatwick Peacehaven Lydd Town Pagham Eastbourne United Little Common
SCFL Premier Senior Cup 1 FA Vase 2 qual SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 7.30pm 3pm 7.30pm 3pm 3pm
A A H A A
Seaford Town Lancing Billingshurst AFC Varndeanians Roffey
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 7.45pm 3pm 3pm 3pm
H A H
Haywards Heath Town Guernsey Horsham YMCA
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm
A A H A
Newhaven Hassocks Lancing Lingfield
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm 11am
H A H A
Midhurst Forest Row Seaford Town Little Common
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm 3pm
H H H H
Old Varndeanians Roffey Bexhill Town Eastbourne United
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm 3pm
A A A A H
Billingshurst Pagham Wick Midhurst Lingfield
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm 3pm 11am
A H A
Bexhill United Newhaven Horsham YMCA
SCFL Premier SCFL Premier SCFL Premier
3pm 3pm 3pm
H/A Opponents
Att Scorers
AUGUST Sat 1 Aug Tues 4 Aug Sat 8 Aug Sat Aug 15 Tues Aug 18 Sat 22 Aug Tues 25 Aug Sat 29 Aug Mon 31 Aug
A H H H H A A H H
560 277 172 224 148 486 144
Pamment 2, Perry Harris, Pamment, Nandhra Perry 2 Maguire-Drew
SEPTEMBER Sat 5 Sep Tue 8 Sep Sat 12 Sep Tues 15 Sep Sat 19 Sep Sat 26 Sep
OCTOBER Sat 3 Oct Tues 6 Oct Sat 17 Oct Sat 24 Oct Sat 31 Oct
Newhaven FC
Horsham FC
NOVEMBER Sat 7 Nov Sat 14 Nov Sat 28 Nov
DECEMBER Sat 5 Dec Sat 12 Dec Sat 19 Dec Mon 28 Dec
JANUARY Sat 2 Jan Sat 16 Jan Sat 23 Jan Sat 30 Jan
FEBRUARY Sat 6 Feb Sat 13 Feb Sat 20 Feb Sat 27 Feb
MARCH Sat 6 Mar Sat 13 Mar Sat 20 Mar Sat 27 Mar Mon 29 Mar
APRIL Sat 3 Apr Sat 10 Apr Sat 17 Apr
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
TEAM LINE UP EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. Harry Howes Curtis Gayler Nick D'Arienzo Alex Malins Nathan Cooper Charlie Harris Ollie Starkey Shay Leahy Dan Perry Tegan Freeman Kieron Pamment Mason Saunders Steve Smith Shea Cascoe Rogers Omar Folkes Joe Stone Max Marshall Rasheed Alaka Josh Mandrha Luke Leppard
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HASSOCKS Omar Abdsami Liam Benson Harvey Blake Charlie Bonwick-Adams Mitch Bromage Charlie Burns Joe Bull Lewis Croal Alex Fair Ruari Farrell Devon Fender Lewis Finney Liam Hendy Oscar Kemp Charlie Martin Kyle Sim Bradley Tighe Jack Troak Dan Turner Morgan Vale Jamie Wilkes
NEXT HOME MATCH
MATCH OFFICIALS:
Forest Row
Referee: Alex Hollis Assistant Ref: Michael Nolan Assistant Ref: Ade Willoughby
Monday 31 August 2026 11am
This matchday programme was created online: www.matchday-programmes.co.uk
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EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN
HISTORY PROGRAMMES FROM THE PAST BY LESTER MEDCALF We are approaching the end of August in 2026 and I’m going to share with you a couple of the programmes we produced in the past as the end of August approached. First we’ll have a look at the programme we produced for East Grinstead v Mile Oak on Saturday 29 August 1992 in division 2 of the Sussex County League. This would be Mile Oak’s first season in senior football and they were making a reasonable start with three draws and one win (but no defeats). We had played them four times at junior level (Sussex County League division 3 for example) and they had beaten us three times - including beating us 6-1 in one game - while we had managed one draw. The biggest items in the programme were a couple of our match reports for recent league games played three days apart. First on the previous Saturday we played Haywards Heath at home. Put very simply we had won - with all our goals coming in the first half. Three goals came from our Phil Richardson with a fourth goal coming from Alan Lester. Three days later and we made our way to Crowborough. The first 10 minutes looked OK but then it went wrong. In Crowborough’s first attack Sean Carey, who was to cause problems throughout the game, scored. A few minutes from half-time one of our defenders tripped a Crowborough forward and Roddy Harman blasted the penalty home. The second half got worse and worse and Crowborough took advantage with three more goals from Micky Dorrell, Sean Carey again and Adie Smith. We did have another piece in the programme which made me smile. Our programme man Bruce Talbot had arranged a cricket match between ourselves and those who worked for the Mid Sussex Times - I think Bruce would bat for both teams? Mid Sussex batted first and were all out for 131 with our keeper conceding 29 extras. We then struggled with the bat and reached 51 for 9. I assume we kept back our better players as we managed to score the remaining 81 runs to win the game.
THANKS REF! OFFICIALS ON THE SPOT AT RINGMER We’ll now have a look at the programme for East Grinstead v Newhaven on Saturday 28 August 1993 in Division one of the Sussex County League. Programme editor Stewart Ward welcomes our visitors to East Court with the news that “Newhaven have made a blistering start to the season” with wins in all of their four league games. We hadn’t made such a good start but we were doing OK. A 2-1 win in the first league match at home to Bexhill had been followed by a win, a draw and a defeat. The defeat had come away to Peacehaven - one of the better teams - but a 4–1 defeat was perhaps more than we were expecting. The programme’s match report tells us that Steve Norris had scored the first goal after only five minutes and we were still ahead at half time, but the second half fell apart. Match reports of our two other games talk about a “scrappy 0-0 draw” at home to Eastbourne United followed by a 1-0 win away to Ringmer with another Steve Norris goal. We were also helped by the referee in the very last few seconds of the game. A corner to Ringmer saw the ball finding its way into the back of our net after being dropped by our keeper Kevin Robbins. But the linesman was waving his flag for a foul on Kevin - and the ref said no goal. So how did the game against Newhaven go? I don’t have a match report of the game, but a later programme has told me that it was a 1-1 draw with our goal coming from defender Darren Cooke.
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
MATCH ACTION EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. VS HASSOCKS
Hassocks FC - History Hassocks Football Club was founded in 1902 and spent the first 80 years of its existence competing in the Mid Sussex Football League and Brighton and Hove and District Football League, playing at Adastra Park in the middle of the village. The Robins first piece of silverware came when lifting the Mid Sussex League’s prestigious Mowatt Cup in 1928. In 1960, they added the showpiece trophy of the Montgomery Cup to their honours list. It was a move to the Brighton & Hove League in the mid 1960s that really started to get Hassocks noticed. The Robins won promotion from Division Three to Division One in back-to-back seasons in 1965 and 1966, lifting the Brighton League title in 1972 after finishing runners up the previous year. The Sussex Intermediate Cup was added in 1975 to complete a golden era for Hassocks. Ambitions of senior football were finally realised for 1981-82 when the club became members of Division One of the Southern Combination Football League. They finished that first season in 12th place and consolidated their hard earned senior status with a succession of top half placings in the division, until a change in ground grading rules saw them demoted into Division Two and a return to intermediate football. After several seasons of treading water, 1991 saw huge changes. Former player and manager Jim Goodrum took over as chairman, Dave John arrived as general manager from Haywards Heath Town and a new coaching team of Nick Greenwood and Peter Liddell took over first team affairs. John, Greenwood and Liddell between them coaxed a mass influx of new players. Results were immediate as Greenwood and Liddell led Hassocks to the Division Two title by 10 points in their first season at the helm. More importantly, progress on the pitch was matched off it. John introduced a youth setup which has since become one of the best in Sussex non league football. More than 100 players have come through the Robins pathway from Under 18s to senior football. 1992 also saw Hassocks finally leave Adastra Park to move into their own purpose built ground at The Beacon. The improved facilities which the committee had spent years working to secure and build enabled promotion to Division One and a return to senior football. Three years later and Greenwood and Liddell took Hassocks into the Premier Division of the Southern Combination League for the first time, winning promotion as Division One runners up. To pass ground grading, floodlights now had to be provided at the Beacon. They came through fundraising and a generous donation from Chelsea vice-chairman and friend of the Robins, Matthew Harding. Mr Harding lived locally and his sons Pat and Joel went onto make over 600 appearances for the club between them. The floodlights were officially opened when Mr Harding arranged for a Chelsea XI featuring Graham Rix and Liam Brady to visit the Beacon. The 1995-96 season saw Hassocks make their debut in the FA Vase. A year later and the Robins entered the FA Cup. Their best run in the world’s greatest cup competition came under the management of John, who led Hassocks all the way to the third qualifying round in 2001-02. That adventure was finally ended by Lewes, who themselves enjoyed a memorable year in the FA Cup by advancing to the first round proper and a meeting with Stoke City. 2002 saw Hassocks mark their centenary by facing an ex-Arsenal and Celebrity XI. Later in the year and Steve Coppell took charge of Brighton and Hove Albion for the first time when the Seagulls visited the Beacon to open the new 237-seater Maurice Boxall Stand, funded in part by the previous season’s FA Cup run. In 2007, the ground was improved further with the opening of a new clubhouse after a long fundraising and building process. The Beacon has regularly held Southern Combination League cup finals ever since, highlighting the excellent facilities at the ground.
The 2011-12 season saw Mickey Jewell lead Hassocks to what as then their highest ever finish of fourth in the Premier Division. A memorable campaign also saw the Robins reach the semi final of the RUR Cup. Jewell stepped down at the end of the 2013-14 season, replaced by club legend John returning for a brief third spell at the helm alongside his duties as chairman. John was followed by Mark Dalgleish and Phil Wickwar, who produced a great escape from relegation in the second half of the 2014-15 season. Dalgleish and Wickwar continued to do well under difficult circumstances, defying the odds to avoid the drop despite being one of the only sides in the Premier Division not to pay their players. The Robins’ proud run of never finishing in the bottom three of the top flight came to an end at the conclusion of the 2017-18 season, although they were spared relegation as only two sides went down. Wickwar stood down at the end of the campaign, leaving Dalgleish in sole charge for 2018-19. Hassocks were in the Premier Division’s bottom two when Covid-19 brought the 2019-20 season to a premature end, leading to Dalgleish’s departure after a decade at the Beacon. John was back in charge for the 2020-21 season which again was curtailed due to the pandemic. John moved upstairs to become technical director ahead of the 2021-22 campaign, with Brad Sweetman stepping up to become first team head coach from his role as Under 18s manager. Sweetman had been part of John’s management team that led the Under 18s to an historic treble in 2017-18, following that up with a succession of runners up finishes when left in sole charge of the Young Robins. Now, he and the players he had brought through the youth system and into the first team over the past five seasons had the opportunity to prove themselves at senior level. A difficult first half of the season in which relegation looked a distinct possibility gave way to a much improved second half. Hassocks ended the campaign in 16th spot and reached the semi finals of the RUR Cup for the first time in a decade. Sweetman was replaced at the end of the season by fan favourite player James Westlake. His rebuilt squad made up of new faces and former favourites lured back to the Beacon finished 10th in 2022-23, securing the club’s first top half placing in nine years. Better was to come in 2023-24. Hassocks acquired a club-record 78 points to finish fifth in the table, qualifying for the promotion playoffs for the first time. The Robins were eliminated by eventual winners Eastbourne Town. John retired as chairman in the summer of 2024, ending over 33 years of day-to-day involvement in running the Robins. The club gave John the role of president in honour of his service and the Clubhouse bar at the Beacon was renamed the Dave John Lounge. His final gift was the appointment of his successor. The second-highest goal scorer for Hassocks, Pat Harding, stepped straight from retirement as a player into the role of chairman, bringing ambitious new ideas to continue the Robins’ progress on and off the pitch. It did not take long for those ideas to bear fruit. The 2024-25 turned into the greatest season in the club’s history with eight trophies won across all three teams. Westlake led Hassocks to their first ever Southern Combination League title. Their 97 points was the joint-second-most of any champions in the 21st century. The Robins finished 16 clear of runners up Crowborough Athletic, who they then beat 3-1 in the Peter Bentley League Cup final to secure the double. The Under 23s completed a treble of Southern Combination North Division champions, League Cup winners and County Cup winners. The Under 18s repeated the trick, lifting the Central Division, League Cup and Sussex Dennis Probee Youth Cup. Winning the Southern Combination League sees Hassocks promoted into the Isthmian League South East Division for 2025-26, bringing step four football to the village for the first time. It was a short-lived stay as the Robins were relegated on the final day of the season having put up a brave fight with the smallest budget in the league.