VS BROADBRIDGE HEATH
ISTHMIAN LEAGUE | SOUTH EAST DIVISION SATURDAY 17 JANUARY 2026 | KICK OFF 3PM
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN FC
The Vistavis Community Stadium College Lane | East Grinstead | RH19 3LS
Tel: 01342 325885
BUZZ FROM THE NEST
Good afternoon and a belated Happy New Year to all our supporters. It goes without saying that 2027 can't be any worse than 2026 when we had a paltry eight wins in the calendar year. Speaking to Grant and Andy, they are certainly not giving up on this season. With Sam Freeman back in goal and perhaps another couple of additions they feel the squad is capable of getting the ten or 11 wins we probably need to have a chance of survival.
A reminder that our recently postponed games against Whyteleafe (Jan 27) and Erith Town (Feb 17) have been rearranged.
Good luck to the lads today and let's hope by 5pm we're celebrating a first home win since March 2025 and first on Saturday since November 2024!!!
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). Followuson:
FROM THE Dugout
On behalf of everyone at East Grinstead Town, I want to extend a warm welcome to you all for today's game.
We also extend our greetings to the players, staff, and fans of Broadbridge Heath who have travelled the short journey to join us at the Vistavis Community Stadium.
Today see us play our first game in a while after having our last two games postponed due to snow then to rain. Today's game had been hit and miss due to no water in East Grinstead and then loads of water falling from the sky. The grounds team have done a great job in getting the pitch prepped and ready for today. Its been a huge task.
Today sees us start a run of games against teams in the lower half of the table (except a rearranged game v Whyteleafe) and it goes without saying that we need to pick up points.
The league table does look bleak, and it will be a huge achievement for everyone at the club if we are to pull off a miracle. Rest assured we are not giving up and we are all working extremely hard to achieve survival. It's not over yet and we feel once we can get a win on the board confidence will improve.
We are happy to announce the return of Sam Freeman in goal, I don't need to introduce him to any of you...he has proven experience at step 4 and 3. His personality and his presence will be a huge asset for the club and the changing room. Welcome Sam.
We have parted company with Dom Vose and Ali Secka, both move on with our warmest regards and we thank him for his efforts in their short time with us.
Steve Smith returns from suspension, he has been a huge miss for us and will play a huge part for the remainder of the season. We have had a small change behind the scenes with Curt Gayler taking a more hands-on role with coaching, so we have decided to take some responsibility off his shoulders as skipper, and are pleased to announce Steve Smith as our new skipper for the remainder of the season.
As always your support has been tremendous and we can't thank you enough for getting behind the players, lets hope today we can repay your support with a win and a launchpad for the remainder of the season.
Enjoy the match, up the Grin!
Grant & Andy
Grant&Andy
STANDINGS LEAGUE
FIXTURES & RESULTS
SEPTEMBER
21 Oct A Faversham
28 Oct H Deal Town
NOVEMBER
11 Nov A Three Bridges
Sat 17 Jan H Broadbridge Heath
Sat 24 Jan A Crowborough Athletic Isthmian South East
Tues 27 Jan H AFC Whyteleafe Isthmian South East
FEBRUARY
Sat 7 Feb A Deal Town Isthmian South East 3pm Sat 14 Feb A Ashford United Isthmian South East 3pm Tue 17 Feb H Erith Town Isthmian South East 7.30pm
Sat 21 Feb H Sheppey United Isthmian South East 3pm Sat 28 Feb A Hastings United Isthmian South East 3pm
MARCH
Sat 7 Mar H VCD Athletic Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 14 Mar A Herne Bay Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 21 Mar H AFC Croydon Athletic Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 28 Mar A Erith Town Isthmian South East 3pm
APRIL
Sat 4 Apr H Sittingbourne Isthmian South East 3pm
Mon 6 Apr A Jersey Bulls Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 11 Apr H Faversham Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 18 Apr A Merstham Isthmian South East 3pm
Sat 25 Apr H Margate Isthmian South East 3pm
TEAM LINE UP
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN F.C. BROADBRIDGE HEATH
Sam Freeman nn
Luke Leppard nn
Ridwan Euba nn
Steve Smith © nn
Dan Thompson nn
Arron Hopkinson nn
Curtis Gayler (C) nn
Jesse Starkey nn
Dan Perry nn
Kieron Pamment nn
Louie Theophanous nn
Tommy Seale nn
Tariq Richards nn
Omar Folkes nn
Tyler Grant nn
Leo Vowles nn
Alfie Hadfield nn
Luke Staight nn
Charlie Gibson nn
Byron Napper (C) nn
Lewis Hyde nn
Salvatore Marino nn
Luke Bejashvili nn
Charlie Connell nn
Charlie Pitcher nn
Elliott Romain nn
Zachary Young nn
Bradley Peters nn
Mason Doughty nn
Emmanuel Abudiore nn
Ollie Rawlins nn
Neo Wooster nn
AFC Whyteleafe
Tuesday 27 January 7.30pm MATCH
OFFICIALS:
Referee: Conor Griffin
Assistant Ref: Jerahl Hall
Assistant Ref: Oliver Storey
EAST GRINSTEAD TOWN HISTORY
PROGRAMMES FROM THE PAST BY LESTER MEDCALF
We’re going to look at a couple of programmes for games played in the past in the middle of January. We start with East Grinstead v Oving on Saturday 18 January 2003 in a Sussex County League division two match. And although the year was 2003 the programme says it is 2002 ! January often sees matches being postponed because of snow and ice and this match against Oving would indeed be our first home game in 2003, although the programme tells us that we had come close to playing at home on the previous Saturday but a sharp frost on the Friday evening ruled it out. Bruce Talbot’s club notes welcome our visitors from Oving - somewhere close to Chichester I think it is - and they were having a difficult season with just five points from their first 18 games - though one of these five points had come from us. We had played them in the away league match earlier in the season and had drawn 2-2: Phil Thompson and Chris Arrow scoring for us.
The programme’s league table shows us in second place, though 17 points below an unbeaten Eastbourne Town at the top. We were due to be playing them in Eastbourne next Saturday January 24.
We have a match report of our most recent league match, which had been played on Saturday January 4 away to Seaford Town. We had gone a goal down just before half-time and it was well into the second half when we equalised through Phil Thompson. Into the last 10 minutes and Dave Gellatly put us ahead and it looked as if we had done enough. But eventually, and shortly before the ref would blow his final whistle, Seaford equalised and 2-2 was how it ended.
The programme also talks about improving the East Court facilities, in particular to get us back in the FA Cup again. Interesting that one of the items featured is to put netting round the pitch to stop balls disappearing into the trees - something that has still not been done !
Let’s talk about the match against Oving. Their assistant team manager was their goalkeeper and their only substitute was the team manager. But it still took us a long time to get in front. Some 75 minutes into the game Matt Thorpe eventually put us ahead and in the last couple of minutes Dave Gellatly scored a second goal for a 2-0 win.
HARDING HAT-TRICK FOR HILL
Moving on a few years we’ll have a look at the programme for East Grinstead v Burgess Hill on Saturday 17 January 2015 in the Isthmian League.
Richard Tramontin’s club notes tell us that it will be a tough afternoon for us as Burgess Hill are unbeaten in the league. We had already played the away match down in Burgess Hill in early September and had lost 3-1 (Kieran Pamment scoring our goal).
Since then Tony Beckingham and JP Collier had taken over as our team managers and in their 10 games in charge we had won six, drawn one and lost three. The programme has a match report of what turned out to be our sixth and last win in that run - away to Hastings where Marc Pelling and Marc Cumberbatch scored the goals in our 2-1 win.
The management duo had their own column in the programme which contained news of our most recent game down in Worthing and which ended our unbeaten run. We lost one of our defenders in the warm up - which led to a swapping round of players - and we then had a player receiving two yellow cards in the first 30 minutes which led us to play the last 60 minutes with 10 players. We lost 2-0.
So did we become the first team to beat Burgess Hill in the league? Well at half-time it looked as though we might well do so. Goals from Emiliano Hysi and Kristian Campbell gave us a 2-0 lead but we were all aware that Burgess Hill had one of the best goalscorers in the league in Pat Harding. And he delivered three goals in the second half to give Burgess Hill a 3-2 win.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TODAY'S VISITORS
Broadbridge Heath Football Club was founded in 1919 by local ex-members of the armed forces who had just returned from the 1914-18 Great War. In the very first season of competitive football, with only 12 registered players, the club won the Horsham and District Championship and Challenge Cup.
In 1970-71 the Horsham League amalgamated with the West Sussex Football League and Heath joined Division Three. Promotion was won to Division Two the following season. In 1978-79 following promotion from the Premier Division of the WSFL, Broadbridge Heath joined
The club moved to the Broadbridge Heath Leisure Centre in Wickhurst Lane in 1987 where we the Club were promoted to senior football in Division 2 for the very first time. Heath remained in sion One. Despite succeeding on on 3, things got even worse for the team went even better by finishing the season as runners up to Eastbourne United and with that promotion back to Division One for only the second time in the clubs history.
In the first two seasons back in Div One (now renamed the Premier Division) the club finished 9th and a year later went even better finishing 8th. In 2017-2018 a slight dip saw the team finish in 15th position but they bounced back a year later to end in 6th place which at the time was our highest ever finish.
Things also improved off the field when, on the 2nd August 2019, the club took possession of their new purpose built facilities, a stadium to satisfy the ground grading requirements for Step 5 football with two further pitches for use by our adult and youth teams for matches and training
In January 2020 former Heath player Chris Simmons took over as Manager, initially on an interim basis but with performances improving he was offered the position on a permanent basis three months later. COVID then struck and two seasons became null and void, after his first full season in charge the team finished in 7th place In 2023/24 they were crowned Southern
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