Burgess Hill Town 2-2 Broadbridge Heath

For the trip to Burgess Hill, Heath Manager Chris Simmons made four changes to his line-up bringing in Bradley Peters and Szymon Kowalczyk for their first starts of the season, Matt Penfold was back in the centre of midfield and Mason Doughty played wide on the right against his former club.

The hosts had the better of the opening minutes and had the first goal attempt when a long Nic D’Arienzo throw into the Heath penalty area on 8 minutes was met by Rob O’Toole who shot narrowly wide of target.

The deadlock was broken on 18 minutes when a deep cross from the right was played towards the far post to Marcel Powell, completely unmarked and with time to slot home at the near post to give Hillians the lead. The hosts continued to create chances as the Bears struggled to have any impact on the game; that was until the 30th minute.

Following a few minutes of sustained pressure with some quality balls played into the Burgess Hill penalty area, a headed clearance from a home defender only went as far as Brad Peters some 16 yards from goal and he powered a header into the right corner of the net and out of reach of James Shaw, the home keeper.

Hillians were back in front within 2 minutes and once again it was a long D’Arienzo throw-in from the right to the near post which caused the problems when the Heath defence failed to clear, the ball was played across the face of goal to Dan Perry at the far post for a tap-in.

The Hills had two further chances to increase their lead before the break both falling to Mo Jammeh with shots from 20 yards but both times he shot straight into the arms of Matthews who saved comfortably and it remained 2-1 at the break.

Heath were much better in the second half with Doughty having a lot more success down the right flank, shooting wide with one effort from distance and then forcing Shaw into a good save down low at foot of the post.

At the other end Jammeh finally got the ball past Matthews only to see his goal-bound effort cleared off the line by Tad Bromage.

Into time added on with the Bears pushing everyone forward, a free kick in the Heath half was pumped forward by Jamie Chesworth to Ryan Brackpool who headed the ball into the danger area, the ball pinged around the 6 yards box before coming out to Maz Quiassaca who drilled it goalwards only to be denied by a point blank save from Shaw and the follow-up by Faris Khallouqi saw the ball cleared off the line by a defender and away for a throw-in.

This time it was Heath’s chance for a long throw which Frankland duly obliged launching the ball towards the Hillians goal, Bromage flicked it on with his head, the ball came out to Doughty who took a touch and then rifled in a low right foot shot through a crowded penalty area into the goal, 2-2 and with time up into a penalty shoot-out.

The less said about Broadbridge Heath and penalty shoot-outs the better, for some reason the gods are always against us in a penalty shoot-out, we did do better than normal taking the game to the 10th penalty before our luck struck-out with the hosts winning through to the quarter-finals by 5-4.

Team: Matthews, Frankland, Chesworth, Peters, Bromage, Brackpool (Campbell 62), Penfold, Kowalczyk (Barlow 84), Doughty, Lemon (Khallouqi 80), Lindsey (Quiassaca 69).