By Scott Mccarthy
The 2021-22 Southern Combination League season is three months old now and for Hassocks, it has been a campaign so far featuring a new way of doing things with mixed results. In the summer, Hassocks decided to focus on youth. With Dave John stepping down as manager to become the club’s technical director overseeing all football at the Beacon. Former Under 18s manager Brad Sweetman was appointed as new first team head coach.
Sweetman is the youngest boss in the Premier Division and he is operating with the youngest squad by some distance. Most of those players have played under his management before in the Robins youth set up, where Sweetman led Hassocks to the Southern Combination Under 18 League title in 2017-18 and a second place finish the following season.
In the two curtailed campaigns, the Robins had been third in 2019-20 and top in 2020-21 when football was halted by the pandemic. Hassocks have enjoyed something of a golden age of youth team football over the past five years, so who better to manage those players as they transcend to senior football than Sweetman?
That is the theory, anyway. The Premier Division is awash with a fair amount of cash this year, meaning that players who perhaps should ply their trade at a higher level are turning out at step five of the non-league pyramid.
Hassocks, meanwhile, are trying to navigate their way through with a team of players mainly under the age of 23. Whilst they will no doubt become better talents for the experience and few clubs exhibit a degree of longterm planning like this, there is a danger that the Robins struggle in the here and now. The major problem with young players is that they tend to be inconsistent, and that is what has plagued Hassocks so far. The Robins have beaten a top eight side in Steyning Town despite playing for over an hour with ten men following an early red card. They then repeated the trick by picking up a point inside of half an hour, despite a dismissal start, against one of the preseason dark horses for a title tilt, Lingfield.
Table toppers Littlehampton Town were nearly shocked at their Sportsfield ground and AFC Uckfield Town have been held at the Beacon too. Mixed in with those promising showings have been several heavy defeats.
Results aside, the one thing you can say is that it is never dull. Sweetman has his side playing an exciting brand of modern football and when it works, it is great to watch. The key for Hassocks over the next six months is getting it to work more often. The games continue to come thick and fast as autumn turns into winter. Fixtures can be found on the Hassocks website and admission remains £6 adults, £3 concessions with under 16s going free. The Robins are trying to start a brave new era, so why not come down and see what it is all about?