Tag Archives: Southern Combination

The Swifts

18 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 14:00

Southern Combination Division 2

SOUTHWATER 4 (Bicknell 24 Beg 38 88p Blayney 58)

FERRING 2 (Lanigan 4 Sutton 90+3)

Att 162

Entry £3

Programme £3

We headed to Horsham’s environs for our second game of the day, and by tradition it seems, one from the County League’s bottom division. Southwater is known locally for its country park but it is also home to Southwater Royals FC who play in the West Sussex league and Southwater FC who’ve played in the Southern Combination since 2021.

The Sports Club has been going for 130 years having been initially just for Cricket, with the Football section was founded in 1958. The club as a whole moved to this site in 2019, and you can tell that the place is still relatively new. That is mainly due to the generously proportioned clubhouse, but also in the sense that what has been set out for football is so far, modest.

There is a pay/ and snack hut at the entrance… and well save for a rope to demarcate the one viewable side that’s just about it! But I enjoyed Southwater’s company. That little hut dispenced tea and burgers as fast as could be expected, and the game certainly was memorable.

It featured retired GP John Miller helping an injured player, and that rariety, a goalkeeper scoring from open play- take a bow Lewis Blayney! Southwater won this one straightforwardly enough, but my abiding memory of this encounter was of a club completely at ease with itself. That is no small achievement given the crowd that was there,

Sussex By The Sea

12 Thursday Feb 2026

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Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 10:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Nandhra 77)

Durand sent off 36 (2nd Booking)

PEACEHAVEN & TELESCOMBE 4 (Wiltshire 34 Tighe 41 Downey-Powell 58 Agihotra 62)

Att 223 at Withdean Stadium, Brighton

Entry & Programme £8

If you take the groundhopping mantra “Everywhere once” literally, I’d have swerved the Withdean Stadium. I visited back in 2001 when Brighton & Hove Albion used here as a lifeboat between the Goldstone Ground, the Priestfield, and the Amex. I had to pretend to be a Darlington fan to get a ticket; all the home areas were sold out, and I perched on a bank of green temporary seats while Brighton won what’s now called League 2. How times change….

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Explosive

05 Thursday Feb 2026

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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!!

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Smooth Hoperator

30 Monday Dec 2024

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Sunday 27th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Combination Division One

EAST PRESTON 1 (Kaffo 18)

Green penalty saved 31

Hastings sent off 65 (DOGSO)

GOLDALMING TOWN 2 (S Ndiulor 5 Edwin 59)

Att 231

Entry £6.50

Programme £2

I’d had to look up my previous visit to the Lashmar, 2007 for those interested, and my abiding memory of the place was that the footprint of the area pitchside wasn’t big so I wondered how East Preston might make best use of it with a big crowd expected. I’d seen their plans, but expectation and delivery can be two completely different things, can’t they?

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Diet Pies

24 Tuesday Dec 2024

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Sundy 27th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Premier Division

PAGHAM 3 (Neighbour 45+2 63p Johnston 55)

LOXWOOD 2 (Brown 66 Martyn 76)

Att 259

Entry £7

Programme £2

GroundhopUK’s trip to Nyetimber Lane was a well over a year in the planning. It was their game that was lost to Storm Babet during last year’s hop, to the extent that it was wasn’t so much waterlogged off, more flooded to the extent that I’m not sure we could have got to the ground, much less see a game!

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The Crows Arms

16 Monday Dec 2024

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 17:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

CROWBOROUGH ATHLETIC 2 (Forster 6 18)

HASSOCKS 1 (Funnell 4)

Att 413

Entry £7

Programme £2

I must admit I treated the Saturday evening game on the Sussex Hop with a certain amount of trepidation. It wasn’t that Crowborough might do badly, rather it was me considering the antonym of the maxim “Smaller clubs tend to make more of an effort.”

Please don’t see this as a dig at any one club, more a comment that the vast majority of clubs with a history at Southern, Isthmian or Northern Premier League level can cope with hosting a hop game’s crowd. The catch is by scaling up and no more the club does miss out on additional revenue and the hopper gets to swerve the burgers…. again!

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Limekiln

11 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Combination Division Two

JARVIS BROOK 2 (Penfold 18 Adams 38)

Bateman sent off 57 (2nd booking)

SOUTHWATER 2 (Lewis 45+3 Packham 90+3)

Att 257

Entry & Programme £5

From the outskirts of Crawley to to the outskirts of Crowborough felt like travelling from one side of Sussex to the other. It was further than we’d normally like to travel between games on a hop day, and was the case because of the league wanting to reward clubs who’d featured as away clubs in last year’s rather wet event. That’ll happen again in next year’s hop, but will have to be discontinued at some point, we like to limit the driving where we can!

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Grotto

02 Monday Dec 2024

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Friday 25th October 2024 ko 19:30

Southern Combination Premier Division

ROFFEY 3 (Chedzey 20 Kyle 40 J Pearse 52)

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Bukleb 19p)

Att 307

Entry £8

Programme £2

On reflection there aren’t many worse places to be jaded at than in the middle of a traffic jam on the M25 on a Friday night. I knew why I was; we’d come off the back of a Kent Hop 3 weeks earlier that had seen catering that with the exception of Sutton Athletic had failed to inspire. I’d spent most of that weekend metaphorically swerving burgers! Then there was the Sussex Hop to consider; I’d worried that at GroundhopUK we were promoting two hops in October at both a similar level, and part of the UK.

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Crabby

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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Sunday 29th October 2023 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Division One

WICK 2 (Hack 31 Crouch 33)

OAKWOOD 3 (Agymane 11 Etherington 48 Ramen 62)

Abandoned 66 minutes due to a waterlogged pitch

Att 189

Entry £7

Programme £2

We’d sat under Storm Babet overnight and I was happy enough to see our hotel in one piece, let alone any other consideration. There’d even been a tornado in Littlehampton with a house near Wick losing it’s roof. Robyn and I went down to breakfast failing to see how we’d see any football that day. In fact the only possible silver lining was that at least it had stopped raining….

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The Brother

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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Saturday 28th October 2023 ko 17:45

Southern Combination Division One

SELSEY 2 (Henton 54 Morey 72)

ROFFEY 2 (Fernades 16 Joseph 20)

Fender sent off (violent conduct 50)

Att 327

Entry £6

Programme £2

The fact that it wasn’t raining between leaving Bosham and arrival at Selsey felt like a window of opportunity. We’d passed by the oddity that is Infinity at Sidlesham with many of the coach party craning to catch a glimpse of the Memorial Ground. It’s always the same whenever we pass by a ground….

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