This was the first ever competitive meeting between the two sides with the hosts having been promoted at the end of last season as champions of the Combined Counties Premier Division South and they’ve had a great start to the season and came into the game knowing that victory over Broadbridge Heath could move them up to second place in the division.

But it was The Bears who took the lead on 14 minutes when an exchange of passes between Emmanuel Abudiore, making his debut for Heath, Jake Lawrence and Callum Dowdell ended with Lawrence playing a low left wing cross towards Dowdell which was intercepted by Cairo Duhaney-Burton running back towards the goal and the ball flew off the right boot of the Whyteleafe player into the top right corner of the net giving his team-mate and goalkeeper George Hill no chance of stopping.

Minutes later Heath could have been 2-up when Abudiore collected the ball on the edge of the Heath ‘D’ advanced forward before sending Dowdell away down the left, the Heath forward continued his advance towards goal, cut inside and rifled a right foot shot from the edge of the penalty area that crashed against the inside of the right post and rebounded across the face of goal before being cleared by a defender.

Heath had another great chance to extend their lead midway through the half when Lawrence intercepted a pass on the halfway line, played a 1:2 with Matt Hay before running through on goal and unleashing a right foot shot from distance that flew narrowly over the Whyteleafe crossbar.

At the other end the hosts best chance of the half fell to Daniel Bennett who received the ball on the edge of the penalty area but pulled his right foot shot wide of the left post and it remained 0-1 to The Bears at the break.

The hosts drew level 15 minutes into the restart when a long ball was played forward into the Heath penalty area chased down by substitute Moses Emmanuel, Heath goalkeeper Alfie Hadfield came out to collect the ball as the two players collided, the Referee’s Assistant immediately flagged for a penalty which the Referee confirmed and Helge Orome duly obliged by firing the spot kick into the bottom left corner to bring his team level.

One soon became two when 3 minutes later some clever play down the left by Eniolo Hassan getting behind the Heath defender and playing the ball low across the face of goal to Emmanuel who scored with a right foot shot from close range to give his team the lead.

Heath put a lot of pressure on the Whyteleafe defence in the closing stages, some goalmouth scrambles, goal-line clearances and a couple of important saves by Hill but the hosts held on to win the game.

Next up for The Bears is a home Velocity Cup match on Tuesday 30th September when we welcome East Grinstead Town to the BodyMould Community Stadium, Kick Off at 7.45.

Team: Hadfield, Staight, Marino (Frankland 81), Napper, Lowery (Peters 46), Terry, Dowdell, Connell, Lawrence, Hay (Romain 68), Abudiore (Bejashvili 68).