A new football season for Hassocks Football Club's Robins

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?

Hassocks Junior Football Club signs record number of players

By Nick Palmer, Club President of Hassocks Junior Football Club

2020 was understandably quite a year for Hassocks Junior Football Club. But the effects of the lockdown didn’t deter either the club or the local youth from getting back to footballing activities and, by September, Hassocks Junior FC had signed a record number of 352 players to the club representing 21 different teams across the U5 to U16 age groups and playing in four different local leagues.

And it’s not just the boy’s either that make up the majority of players as the club is extremely proud to now have three girl’s teams as well in its ranks representing the U10’s, U12’s & U13’s age groups.

“Having girl’s teams in the club has been a target of ours for a number of years”, says Jason Roberts, our current Club Chairman, “And I’m delighted to now be able to say that we have no less than three of them, two of which are currently representing us in the Sussex County Women & Girls Football League.”

But getting players to sign up to the club is only half the battle as nothing we do could happen if it wasn’t for the numerous people that work tirelessly by giving up their time to make the world of youth football a reality for so many of our local youngsters. An army of volunteers make Hassocks Junior FC the club it is today. And let’s not forget our sponsors and the local authorities who have also helped us to make it all possible.

Like other sporting clubs, everyone at Hassocks Juniors takes the threat of COVID-19 very seriously and we did a great deal of work in 2020 to ensure footballing activities could take place in a safe environment for coaches, players and their families. From COVID officers being present for matches to the issuing of full PPE for all team managers, the club worked incredibly hard to keep young players playing football. And 2021 will be no different, the safety of everyone involved with our activities remains of paramount importance and will continue to do so for as long as is necessary.

But everyone at the club remains optimistic for the future and if there is one thing that we all learned from 2020 it’s that the appetite for getting young people off their games consoles and outside participating in healthy sporting activities has never been stronger. That’s probably why we have a record number of players now signed to the club.

These are challenging times right now but we know full well the positive impact that team sport has on young people not just from a fitness perspective but teaching them invaluable life skills as well such as teamwork, fair play, hard work and pride. In addition, the need for positive mental wellness in our youth has never been more important and we’ll endeavour to keep Hassocks Junior Football Club providing this as well as remaining an integral part of our community.

For more information about the club please visit our website www.hassocksjuniorfc.co.uk or contact Nick Palmer at president@hassocksjuniorfc.co.uk

Hassocks' Robins vs Burgess Hill's Hillians for charity

Grassroots football returned from its lockdown hiatus on 5th December 2020 and for Hassocks it was an occasion to remember as the Robins raised a record breaking amount of money for St Peter & St James Hospice in the 2020 Ann John Trophy.

The annual charity match takes place each year between Hassocks and Burgess Hill Town in memory of Ann, wife of the Robins’ long-serving chairman, Dave John. In 2014, Ann sadly passed away from cancer, having been as familiar a face on the Sussex non-league circuit as her husband, thanks in part to her legendary cakes which were sold at the Beacon every match day.

Traditionally, the game takes place in the summer, but that was not possible this year. When the government announced that football could resume from the start of December, Hassocks spotted an opportunity to get the match played before the competitive business of the Southern Combination League Premier restarted.

Thanks to the willingness of the Hillians and their manager Jay Lovett, the match was organised in double quick time. Changes to the rules surrounding licensed bars and hospitality venues meant it took considerable planning: The Beacon clubhouse had to remain shut, but Hassocks could serve hot food providing it was passed out of a window without fans entering the building.

Despite the challenges of trying to organise a game of football in quick time with a host of restrictions to consider, the afternoon was a complete success. Fans of both clubs turned out in force, resulting in £1500 being raised for the Hospice. In a year in which charity donations have been severely hit by the pandemic, that is a huge amount of money for an organisation who need as much support as possible.

Things did not go quite so swimmingly on the pitch, from a Hassocks point of view at least. Lovett brought a full-strength Burgess Hill side on the short journey south and they showed why they are a division above the Robins in the football pyramid by running out 8-1 winners to retain the Ann John Trophy.

Sometimes, football is about much more than a result, and this is one of those occasions. Thank you to everyone who came along and supported the afternoon, and we hope to see you in 2021 to try and raise even more for St Peter & St James.

Find Hassocks Robins at www.hassocksfc.net

Watch Hassocks Football Club

By Scott McCarthy

The turnstiles at the Beacon have been open for a month now and one of the unexpected consequences of Covid-19 and the ban on spectators at professional football is that crowd numbers have gone through the roof.

Football fans looking for the live action they cannot get at the Amex or elsewhere are instead flocking to non-league grounds. What they are finding is entertaining football, value-for-money, good food and the option of having a pint of beer while they watch.

It is a different world to the mega-rich Premier League, where you will pay £4 for a bag of Minstrels and £3 for a bottle of water. £7 will get you a hotdog, a burger and a large plate of cheesy chips at the Beacon in comparison!
And Hassocks are selling a lot of those. The Robins have seen more than a 100 percent increase in attendances at their home fixtures so far, a massive boost for the club’s finances after going from March to September without a single penny of income.

Visitors old and new are not just being treated to unorthodox three course meals for less than a tenner; Hassocks has rebuilt its squad over the summer with a youthful, new-look team who have shown plenty of promise so far.

If you are a football supporter who is missing watching in the flesh, then come and spend a Saturday at the Beacon. Hassocks have three home games in October, all detailed on the club’s website and tickets are available on the gate for £6 adults and £3 concessions. Under 16s go free.

Of course, nobody knows how long the turnstiles will be open for – this information is correct at the time of going to press. Should further restrictions be placed on grassroots football, then the Beacon may have to shut again.

For now though, Hassocks and all their new-found supporters are determined to enjoy football while they can!

A new decade for Hassocks FC

By Scott Mccarthy

Gone are the 2010s and here are the 2020s. When one decade passes over to another, it often seems like
a good time to reflect on what has been before and what we want to happen in the future.

Everywhere you looked over the past month or so we’ve been blitzed with ‘best of the decade’ lists and ‘what will the world look like in 2030?’. You probably thought you could finally escape all that by picking up the latest edition of Hassocks Life in January 2020, but Hassocks FC have other ideas. Sorry!

How will the 2010s be remembered at the Beacon? By-and-large, it was a decade of success. The Robins achieved their highest ever finish of fourth in the Southern Combination League Premier Division in the 2011-12 season.

The Under 18s lifted two Central Division titles, finished runners up on a further three occasions and won a League Cup. The production line from youth team to first team has shown no signs of abating either.

Of course, there have been low points. Only being spared relegation due to ground grading at the end of the 2017-18 campaign was a disappointment, but the Robins have managed to stay afloat in the top flight – no mean feat for a club who pay peanuts compared to some of the big spenders.

And what of the future? That’s a more difficult question. That lack of serious financial backing means that it is hard to see how Hassocks could compete for promotion to the Isthmian League in the near future at least. Success on the pitch therefore over the next ten years will look like extending their run as the top flight’s longest serving club past the 30-year mark.

Strengthening the junior section and getting even more local players into the first team is another realistic target. The long-talked-about south field development might one day find the funding and support to get off the ground, allowing the Beacon to provide improved facilities and more pitches for teams in the village.

That could turn the home of football in Hassocks into the home of football in the local area, making the football club something the community can be truly proud of. Not a bad aim for the decade ahead, is it?