Boxing Day football, a day when its traditional to play a local derby in front of a big crowd and against one of your closest and most bitter rivals; unfortunately for Heath we found ourselves with a home fixture against newly promoted Midhurst & Easebourne, not that there’s anything wrong with Midhurst & Easebourne FC but it’s hardly a local derby when the distance between the two clubs is probably further than most of the teams we play against in the SCFL Premier division?

So not the biggest gate of the season but the Heath supporters and neutrals who did attend were able to witness a five goal feast as the Bears put on the style with a thumping 5-0 victory to end the year just four points off the leaders Crawley Down Gatwick.

Heath Manager Chris Simmons was forced to make several changes to his starting lineup with Matt Penfold out with a knee injury, Louis Evans unwell and Mason Doughty unavailable. The Bears started strongly, had a lot of possession in the oppositions half and created several chances before finally opening their account on 20 minutes, a free kick was awarded to Heath wide on the right, Jamie Chesworth placed the ball and hit a left foot cross that avoided a host of players and went straight in at the far post for the defenders first goal for the club. Heath continued to create a hatful of chances but somehow they were unable to add to their score and it remained 1-0 at the break.

Heath doubled their lead 3 minutes into the restart, a good move down the right saw the ball played into Charlie Weller on the edge of the box, he played a back heel pass into the path of Sam Lemon whose right foot shot was deflected off a defender and Charlie Parmiter nipped in to steal the ball away from the goalkeeper to score from close range.

Ryan Brackpool made it 3-0 on 57mins when he met Weller’s corner from the left with a powerful header from 8 yards and the game was all but over midway through the half when Parmiter slipped the ball through to Alex Barbary to score with a right foot shot from the edge of the box beating the keeper at his near post.

The best was still to come deep into injury time when Brackpool played a cross field pass to Sean Terry running in from the right, the defender slipped the ball past a Midhurst player, advanced towards goal before rifling a left foot shot from 20 yards that flew past the Midhurst keeper into the net.

So a very good end to the year for The Bears who have come on leaps and bounds this season but we’re only at the halfway stage and there’s a lot more football to go yet.

Next up is another Bank Holiday match when we travel the short distance to play Alfold on Tuesday 2nd January, Please Note that game kicks off at 11.00

Team: Matthews, Frankland (Terry 50), Chesworth, Waddingham (H.Mark 70), Sim, Brackpool, Weller, Todd, Barbary (Young 83), Parmiter (C.Mark 86), Lemon (Carvalho 55),