Friday 31st October 2025 ko 19:30

Southern Combination Division 2

ALFOLD 2 (Penalver 33 Massey 67)

RUSTINGTON 5 (Harris 7 90+3 De Gruchy 12 25 38)

Att 185

Entry £4

Programme £1.50

It was a little awkward. About a week before the Sussex Hop I was invited on to a podcast to talk about the forthcoming weekend. It turned out that my interviewers had also seen a few games on the Kent Hop too. They described it all as a little flat, which with a couple of exceptions wasn’t inaccurate, but I did have a lot of hope for the Sussex. Yes I am aware that Alfold is in fact in Surrey- such is county boundaries slightly uneasy relationship with English football!!

That was based on their previous events, and since the host clubs had been away clubs previously (although Alfold’s was at the sparsely supported Oakwood) they had seen what good looks like and a bank of expertise had been built up around the host clubs in previous years. On a personal level, I was intrigued to be revisiting Dunsfold Road, having visited a decade earlier. Then as now they were playing in the bottom division of the County League, but had spent some of the intervening time in the Step 6 Division One, so had acquired lights and stands. My memory of them is that they’d apologised for the quality of game I saw, when I thought it wasn’t bad at all!

But the sad irony was that in a part of the Weald noted for gunpowder production the heavy rain threatened to turn the opening game of the weekend into the dampest of damp squibs. I’m grateful it didn’t, due to a superbly draining pitch, and while the weather clearly saw a smaller crowd than I’d have liked, at least Alfold made the most of it.

A lot of that was to do with their catering- and since Robyn and I had travelled straight from work having the choice of Chilli and Nachos, or Sausage Casserole was delicious, inspired, and I trust profitable! Sadly the game really didn’t go their way, due mainly to Ryan de Gruchy’s hat trick for Rustington. Another sadness is that chances are that the visitors will seek a groundshare to allow for promotion, which would preclude us visiting on a subsequent hop.

But in the end I was happy to have had both an entertaining game, and a well hosted opening to the weekend. I’m not quite at the point where I expect it, so I was happy enough as we splashed our way down to Worthing, our base for the weekend. At least it had stopped raining.