Littlehampton Town 2-1 Broadbridge Heath

Having two previous scheduled fixtures postponed due to waterlogged pitches it was a case of third time lucky as these two sides finally came together at The Sportsfield Ground.

Heath got off to a great start pinning the home defence back and had the ball in the back of the net within a minute only for the goal to be disallowed with the Assistant judging the ball had crossed the goal-line before it was cut back for Mason Doughty to score. Minutes later a Louis Evans free kick from 25 yards was blocked by the defensive wall, the ball came out to Doughty again who had his left foot shot charged down before the Marigolds cleared the danger.

Another Heath attack resulted in a corner on the left which Evans played in under the crossbar, the ball again came out to Doughty who hit a right foot effort that deflected off a defender and went inches wide of the goal post with the resulting corner coming to nothing.

Heath finally broke the deadlock with a flowing move that started with Ryan Brackpool collecting the ball in his own 6 yards box, he advanced forward with the ball before picking out Adrian Todd wide on the right and from the halfway line the midfielder picked out the run of Evans in the middle of the park who ran through and dispatched a left foot shot past Lewis Broughton giving Heath a deserved lead after 9 minutes play.

Heath continued to push forward with Ben Aubrey splitting the Marigolds defence on 18 minutes to let Evans through on goal once again but on this occasion the midfielders left foot shot was inches wide of the post with the keeper well beaten.

The home side gradually got into the game with Joss Short rifling a right foot shot from the edge of the penalty area which Heath keeper Alfie Hadfield tipped over the crossbar but it remained 0-1 to the Bears at the break.

The equalising goal came 5 minutes into the restart under somewhat controversial circumstances when the Referee gave a free-kick to Littlehampton on the halfway line. While still explaining to the players about his decision, the free-kick was taken quickly behind his back by the home-side, played up front to George Gaskyn who played it into the path of Dion Jarvis for a tap-in much to the annoyance of the Heath contingent whose felt the referee wasn’t ready to restart the game as he was still talking to players and should have called the play back.

Heath responded well with Evans again breaking through the centre of mid-field and rifling a shot from 25 yards that was well blocked by Broughton.

The game changed on 56 minutes when Adrian Todd went into a tackle winning the ball off a home player on the halfway line, it looked a fair challenge but the match referee thought otherwise as he produced a red card from his back pocket and Heath were down to 10.

With the extra man it was the home-side who produced the more chances with Hadfield making a fine save from a fierce shot coming in from the right but in general the Bears held firm until the 88th minute when Matt Astle’s cross from the left was acrobatically converted at the far post by Brad Dolaghan to win the game for his team.

A flurry of yellow cards were shown to players of both sides in the closing minutes with Short getting his second of the match to earn an early shower.

Team: Hadfield, Peters, Archeampong, Waddingham (Khallouqi 77), Bromage, Brackpool, Todd, Evans, Aubrey (Mutongerwa 66), Lemon (Lindsey 84), Doughty.