Tuesday 24th October ko 19:45

Hampshire Premier League Senior Division

INFINITY 1 (Powell 15)

BISHOPS WALTHAM DYNAMOS 2 (Riddell 11 Dawson 74)

Att 34 at Sidlesham Memorial Recreation Ground

Free Entry

When GroundhopUK’s Chris Berezai phoned me to say that the Southern Combination Hop was in part, going to be based in around the Selsey Peninsula I looked at a map and wondered why I’d never got around to visiting Sidlesham FC? With the line-up we had I knew the following weekend’s event would be passing by the Memorial Ground, and I knew not having seen a game there would irk me.

The story is a little odd. Sidlesham FC played Sussex County League (now the Southern Combination) football here from 1931 to 2019 but were evicted when their lease was terminated following a dispute with the local Parish Council. What was left of the club moved to Fishbourne, some 5 miles away and they now play in the off-pyramid West Sussex League as Fishbourne FC. I really ought to complete this story and go and watch them!

At that point I felt I’d missed out on the ground, but in 2022 Infinity moved in, and their story is nothing if not remarkable. They started life in 2006 based in Winchester but moved to Southampton, before basing themselves in Knowle, near Fareham as they were promoted to the Hampshire Premier League. In 2021 they moved to groundshare at Hythe & Dibden to gain promotion to the Wessex League, but their stay in that league was brief and unhappy. The club were forced to resign from the league after Hythe terminated their time at Clayfields following some fairly unsavoury allegations.

The surprise is that they moved 13 miles from the Hampshire border into Sussex, but remain in the Hampshire Pyramid. Based in Sidlesham they could have easily switched to the Southern Combination’s second division, and on that basis there’s a fair chance they’d have been on the forthcoming hop between the games at Bosham and Selsey!

But I digress a little. The fascination of watching a game at the Memorial Ground is how ground gradings have moved on. Make no mistake, the ground is more than adequate for Infinity’s needs right now, and floodlit fixtures are unusual in the Hampshire Premier League. But 4 years after Sidlesham’s eviction the ground reflects the old club’s stint at Step 6, rather than how things need to be now.

Look at the lack of hard standing around all 4 sides of the ground. The stand with few seats and an “Accessibility section” with a step up to it, the lack of a pay booth or similar. The ground now is one with potential, and for a return to Pyramid Football would mean improvements, that I’m sure would mean negotiations with the Parish Council. Even the floodlights would need attention, one floodlight tower is out-of-action and when the rains came both the floodlights and the clubhouse lights blinked alarmingly. For a time I thought we were heading for an abandonment. That said, the tea bar with it’s line of air-fried bacon rolls is worthy of any level of the game.

The big surprise though was the result, Infinity were top, and Bishops Waltham in lower mid-table. Now I know the hosts did have a number of players missing, but its fair to say they never managed to get the stranglehold on the game they were clearly aiming for. As the rains came the frustrations became clear in the deluge, as in fact did mine on the A27 heading for home afterwards. Conditions were as bad as I’d driven in for a while. That didn’t bode well for the weekend.