“A comedy of errors leaving no doubt that the Sussex Sunday League is back”

Three months may have passed since Hassocks Fatboys last played a game of football, but little has changed. Against Physics Athletico there was a comedy own goal, a load of missed chances, Spiesy falling over the ball and a Stuart meltdown. It was as if lockdown three had never happened.

The only surprising element was the result. Historically, the Fatboys are always terrible in their first competitive game after a prolonged break. See the 9-0 defeat to Queens Park in the opening game of the current season after six months off thanks to lockdown one.

Or when we went all the way to Rudgwick with a great chance of making the County Cup Semi Finals, only to be 3-0 down inside 10 minutes having not played for a month over Christmas.

To draw 1-1 was therefore a pretty good result, achieved by one of the strongest squads of the campaign. Normally, the trip to Seaford involves nine first team players, three of whom are only playing because they have been promised a McDonalds in Newhaven on the way home, and three reserves to make up the numbers.

So starved of football have people been that we even saw the likes of Davo (three appearances so far), Ronnie (two appearances so far), Bally (two appearances so far) and Ryan John (20 minutes so far but what a 20 minutes it was away at Kingston Village) had declared themselves available despite the 8pm kick off miles from Mid Sussex.

Ryan’s motives for being present soon became clear as before we had even kicked off he had signed Mike and Scott for his new cricket team, having apparently become Mid Sussex’s answer to Joe Root. Ryan with a heavy and potentially dangerous wooden bat in his hand? Doesn’t sound good, does it?

He had also turned up with no shin pads, meaning that he had to stuff Ronnie’s flipflops down his socks and hope for the best. Imagine the scenes when he comes out to bat in May with a set of sandals instead of pads…

There was little to report in the opening 20 minutes on a lovely evening in East Sussex. Both teams kept the ball relatively well but were a bit lacking in the final third, possibly through rustiness.

Neither goalkeeper had a save to make, leaving the highlight of the opening exchanges to be Jordan taking a foul throw, generously being allowed to take it again by the referee, only to produce another foul throw from the second attempt. Sadly, Jordan wasn’t granted a third opportunity to get it right as the ball went to Physics.

There were a couple of half chances flashed wide by Jordan and Stuart and although Duck’s set piece deliveries were perfect, Davo, Spiesy and Andy were all off target with headers.

If anything, it was a little too comfortable at the other end. In between sweeping his luscious lockdown locks out of his eyes whilst shouting “I’m struggling to see”, Davo was marshalling the back line wonderfully.

Fox at right back and Mike at left back were dealing with everything down their flanks and happy to play out from defence. The only wobble came when Spiesy managed to take a little tumble when treading on the ball. Thankfully, there was no Physics player around him to take advantage.

On the one occasion Physics did get a shot away, Scott was equal to it by tipping a bending effort from the edge of the area around the post at full stretch. That was the closest either side came to breaking the deadlock as the first half finished 0-0.

The second half followed a similar pattern until the midway point when a quite wonderful series of events unfolded to result in Davo joining the prestigious Hassocks Fatboys Own Goal Club.

Things began unravelling when Scott came sprinting off his line to try and claim a through ball, only for Fox to kick it straight past him. Fox then crashed into Scott, leaving both men in a heap on the ground.

A gleeful Physics player chased onto the loose ball but despite having an empty goal to aim out, his effort was going wide until Davo chased back and slid in to try and clear off the line, only succeeding in putting it into the net. A comedy of errors leaving no doubt that the Sussex Sunday League is back.

Going 1-0 behind seemed to inspire an improved performance and with Stuart and Duck switching flanks, suddenly a whole host of good opportunities came our way.

Jack hit a volley from the edge of the box preceded by Jordan screaming “CUP FINAL” in reference to the one goal Jack has scored in the past half-decade. Jack could not add to that solitary strike from the Sussex Sunday Trophy against Unicorn United in 2019 as the keeper made a good save.

Jordan and Stuart then linked up well with the former flashing a cross across goal which only needed a touch from one of the three green shirts queuing up in the box. A Ronnie through ball sent Duck away and when his journey through the Physics defence was halted illegally, we had a free kick in a dangerous position.

Duck’s shot from said free kick proved too hot for the opposition goalkeeper to handle and Andy gobbled up the rebound, only for the flag to go up for what must have been a very marginal offside.

Another Duck set piece caused chaos and Davo beat the Physics number one to the ball, only for that goal to be ruled out for a foul on the goalkeeper.

Matty P took over from Jack with Fox pushing into midfield which, according to Fox at least, was the catalyst for the equaliser as Jordan was poleaxed in the box, giving Andy the chance to level things up with his 100th goal for the club.

Andy duly sent the goalkeeper the wrong way to the delight of everyone bar Stuart, who finally had to admit defeat in the race to become the first player to hit a century of Fatboys goals. Stuart’s mood was not improved when he was replaced by Alex Bates, resulting in a light meltdown from the Fatboys captain.

There were further changes as Bally replaced Spiesy with Mike shifting from left back to centre half and Ryan was introduced in place of Jordan. Physics were making subs at a liberal rate too and suddenly, we had a very open last 15 minutes on our hands.

Both sides had a couple of glorious chances to win it in that time. Ryan found himself in on goal but his right footed googly was repelled by the legs of the goalkeepers. Physics broke up the other end and drew an excellent one-on-one save from Scott; they then hit the crossbar from the rebound with Davo blocking a third effort on the line.

With seconds remaining, Bally decided it would be a good time to make a tackle that was only about 20 seconds late on the biggest bloke on the pitch. Bally may have been wearing contact lenses to play football for the first time in his life, but it does not appear to have made an ounce of difference to his ability to time a tackle.

The Physics player went understandably mad, Bally clocked the size of him and began running away whilst saying in an unconvinced, high pitched voice “I thought I got the ball,” and then Jack forgot he was meant to be an impartial linesman and strode onto the pitch to try and start a fight.

In amongst all the kerfuffle, the Physics free kick taker rather cheekily moved the ball 10 yards closer to the goal, leaving the set piece now to be taken in a very interesting position. The low effort beat the wall but not Scott, who showed good hands to hold before launching a quick counter by leathering up to Ryan.

There seemed little on, but Ryan did really well to hold up the ball and wait for reinforcements. Andy soon joined him, collecting a layoff to rifle a side footed volley from 25 yards against the post with the Physics goalkeeper rooted to the spot.

It was a breathless finish to a match which, although we had the better chances, could have gone either way as we reach the halfway point of the season with 16 points in the bag – already a Fatboys record Premier Division haul.