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Keeper heroics can’t keep Dockers at bay


Arundel 1 Newhaven 3, SCFL Premier Division, Saturday 6th April 2019


And so I enter the final month of my inaugural groundhopping season.


Over the next few weeks, championships will be decided in leagues up and down the country, promotion places will be won, play-off places secured while numerous teams will heartbreakingly tumble through the relegation trapdoor into the depths of the division below.


And by the time the curtain comes down on the 2018/19 campaign, I will have finally succeeded in mu self-imposed mission of visiting the grounds of every SCFL Premier team this season.


This weekend, I took a big step towards achieving that goal by finally paying a visit to Arundel’s Mill Road Ground. I say finally as it is the third time I have attempted to watch a game there this season.

In early February my plans to go and watch Arundel and Pagham were ruined by snow (I settled for a trip to Seaford instead), while a couple of weeks ago my intended trip to see The Mullets take on fellow relegation battlers Shoreham was scuppered by my eldest’s end of season football team do.


As it turned out, though, these missed visits were ultimately to work in my favour. For the next team due to visit Mill Road were none other than my home town club, Newhaven FC. As those of you who previously read about my trip to Fort Road (never the Trafalgar Ground) earlier this season will already know, I grew up a regular spectator on the Fort Road terraces, and later wrote match reports on the Dockers for the Sussex Express. At the start of the season, it had been my intention to see Newhaven a little more often than I actually have on my travels, but the fixture lists have never quite worked out that way. Here was a chance to kill two birds with one stone.


My drive to Arundel was far quicker than it would have been on a typical Saturday afternoon. It’s amazing what effect 30,000+ Brighton and Hove Albion supporters (and I use that term loosely) decamping to Wembley for a day can have on the roads of Sussex.


I pulled into the car park which sits directly outside Arundel’s ground at just after 14:30, and was directed into a space by a helpful steward. Entrance to the game cost £6, program included. While the program may have been a fairly basic effort, it still included all the information you need from such a product and, as I believe I have made clear over the past 40 or so blogs, basic is better than nothing!


While Mill Road may in itself be a fairly standard county league ground – covered seated stand, check; clubhouse, check; smaller terraced stand, check; hot drink and food hut, check – what sets it apart from other grounds is its location. Overlooked by the stunning Arundel Castle which dominates the town’s landscape, it’s a great setting in which to watch a football match (especially for those of us who love our history).


This would be the third time I’ve seen Arundel this season, and while they’ve lost both of those games – to Lancing and Eastbourne Town – in both matches they showed glimpses of being a better team than their league position suggests. I was disappointed to see that Ben Gray wasn’t in the squad for this match. He’d impressed me on both previous occasions that I’d seen him play, so was looking forward to seeing him in action again. He was listed as being in the team in the program, so guess he was either injured or Wembley-bound for the afternoon.


Up until a few weeks ago, the Dockers were still in title contention, and while that challenge fell by the wayside after a poor run of form in February and March, they still have a great chance of finishing the season in a highly creditable runners up position.


In truth, the gulf in class was evident from the outset. Newhaven assumed control of the match immediately, and had the league’s top scorer Lee Robinson had his shooting boots on, they could have the lead inside five minutes when he burst through the home defence only to be denied by Daniel Stevens in the Arundel goal.

This was to become a theme throughout the match, as Stevens continually thwarted Newhaven’s danger man. Robinson started the game with 42 league goals to his name. Had it not been for Stevens, he could have finished it far closer to 50.


The opening goal duly arrived just after the ten-minute mark. A whipped free-kick from Kyle Woolven was not dealt with at all by the Arundel defence, and an unmarked Rhys Smith had the simple task of heading in from close range (see video).


In the next 15 minutes, Newhaven had numerous chances to extend their lead but failed to take them. Most of Arundel’s problems were coming from a desire to try and play out from the back – a desire which was evidently getting on the nerves of a number of the supporters I was standing near. I lost count of the number of shouts of ‘Just get rid of it’ and ‘Not there, not there’ I heard during the opening 45 minutes.


However, to almost everyone’s surprise, it was the hosts who struck next. Dion Jarvis, who was by far and away Arundel’s stand-out outfield player, took full advantage of a mistake in the Newhaven defence near the halfway line, to race unopposed through the middle and clinically beat Jake Buss from just inside the area.


Parity didn’t last long. Within five minutes, another Woolven set-piece, this time from a corner, again wasn’t dealt with by The Mullet’s defenders, and it was left to Harry Docherty to head home unopposed.


While the Dockers stayed largely in control up until the interval – another great chance came and went for Robinson – it was Arundel who very nearly snatched an equaliser right on half-time, with Buss making a great reaction save from a deflected effort to keep the scores level.


At half-time, I wandered round to get a cup of coffee from the hut, and then decided to watch the second half from the seated stand. In there, I was reacquainted with a few of the hardcore Newhaven supporters who have been following the Dockers (loudly – well, one of them in particular, you know who you are) for as long as I can remember.

Anyone who has ever been to Fort Road will no doubt know who I’m talking about, and while a few of the jibes probably annoy some fans (and players and management), they are all (mostly) made very much in jest.


A sample of what I’m talking about can be summed up by this second-half exchange, following a well-timed tackle by an Arundel defender in the penalty area.


Man (shouting): “Ref, that’s outrageous. Clear penalty. What game you watching?”
  

Man (then sitting down and talking normally): “in fairness, I thought that was a great tackle.”
  

If the first half had been controlled by Newhaven, then the second half was absolutely dominated by them. The ball barely left their attacking half for the first 30 minutes of the second period. At one point a couple of ducks wandered onto the other half of the pitch, seemingly completely unperturbed by the fact a game was going on. One wags comment (an Arundel fans) that the heat-map for those ducks would show more movement than anyone else’s in that half of the pitch may have been a little unfair (if entirely accurate). Eventually the ducks did  make their way up the other end of the pitch where they had to be ushered off. Now you don’t see that every week in the Premier League, do you?


Anyway, as the match went on, chance after chance fell Newhaven’s way, but the visitors were unable to find a way past Stevens – who was by far and away the man of the match. Some wayward finishing didn't help matters much, either.


With the Dockers starting to become frustrated by the number of chances they were missing, Arundel launched a rare foray forward (they had by now abandoned any attempts to play short passing football in favour of a far more direct approach) and the largely untested Buss once again had to be alert to keep the scores level.


With the game entering the 90-minute mark, there was a growing sense in the stand (from both sets of supporters) that it was going to be one of those games where a team that has been so on top for the entirety of the match (I honestly can’t remember a game where I’ve seen so many missed chances by one side – good chances) end up throwing away the three points.


These fears (or hopes depending on your point of view) were finally put to bed in injury time, when substitute Ebou Jallow showed his teammates how it should be done, with a composed curling finish into the top corner from the edge of the area. A fine goal to kill off the contest.


So the Dockers’ fight for a runners up place continues, while Arundel face a very nervy end to the season.


Stevens’ fine performance between the sticks, though, could ultimately prove to be pivotal for the hosts. Following the afternoon’s other results, Arundel are now only out of the relegation zone on goal-difference, by just a single goal! Had it not been for the keeper’s virtuoso performance, then that goal-difference shield could so easily have been shattered.


It’s sure to be an exciting end to the season at the foot of the table!   

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