Mid Sussex League

Montgomery Cup 2nd Round

Saturday 21st September 2019

Kick Off 16.00 Actual 16.03

Nutley 2 Eastbourne Rangers 4, attendance 27

3’ 0-1

15’ 0-2

33’ 0-3

52’ 0-4

54’ 1-4

64’ 2-4

@ Fords Green

Nutley

TN22 3LJ

No Admission or Programme.

The drive from Ardingly saw me arrive twenty minutes before the scheduled kick off. It is always a pleasing sight when you are aiming for a double, to see the teams warming up on the pitch when you arrive, as there is always a possibility that they may have kicked off early if the earlier scheduled match at the ground hasn’t taken place for some reason.

Nutley are second from bottom in the league table of the Championship (level 2 of the league) having taken one point from their first four matches. Eastbourne Rangers are in the Premier Division, sitting third from bottom, also having just a single point, but from five games.

It was evident from the start that Eastbourne Rangers were from a higher division. They were ahead after just three minutes and by halftime it was 0-3 and they were coasting. A defender diverted a cross into his own net to make it 0-4 in favour of the visitors and that looked to be it. Nutley did reduce the arrears within two minutes, heading in from a corner, before a fine solo run and finish from midfield saw it pulled back to 2-4 with twenty five minutes left. Nutley never looked like scoring again though, even when Eastbourne Rangers had a player sin binned for the last ten minutes of the match.

Mid Sussex League

Division 1

Saturday 21st September 2019

Kick Off 13.30 Actual 13.33

Ardingly 0 Lindfield II 5, attendance 18

8’ 0-1

38’ 0-2

41’ 0-3

48’ 0-4

63’ 0-5

@ Ardingly Recreation Ground

High Street

Ardingly

RH17 6TB

No Admission or Programme.

There were double opportunities today in the Mid Sussex League as a number of 4 o’clock matches were scheduled. Rather than risk a cup match, with the possibility of games going to a penalty shoot out and possibly finishing too late to enable making it to a second match, I decided to play safe and do a league match for the first game.

Division 1 in this league is actually the third level (Premier Division, then Championship being the top two levels). These two had started the season losing their opening match, Ardingly going down 0-3 at home, whilst Lindfield II had been thrashed 10-0 at Holland Sports. Had I checked last weeks results beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have risked Lindfield II as the opposition today!

This was pretty much one way traffic from the off. Lindfield II were 0-3 up by halftime and also had 3 shots that hit the post with the ‘keeper nowhere near saving them. They added another couple in the first twenty minutes of the second half to make it 0-5. Ardingly played the last 21 minutes of the match with only 10 players, as they had already used all their substitutions when another player left the field with a head injury. Lindfield II seemed to take pity on them and the last quarter of an hour really dragged.

It seemed strange to be at a match this late in September where there were drinks breaks due to the warm weather. There was one midway through the first half, before two more followed in the second.