Maskell at Peacehaven

MICK Maskell is the man appointed to pick up the pieces at Peacehaven after a confusing summer at Piddinghoe Avenue.

A scheme devised by Colin Woffinden to blood former Brighton & Hove Albion youngsters to the cut and thrust of County League football at the club, appears to have hit a brick wall.

The teenage 'rejects' have yet to appear for pre-season training at Piddinghoe, and now won't be available to the club until late August at the earliest.

Consequently Peacehaven have lost the majority of last season's squad, who understandably felt unwanted by the former County League giants, who swept all before them in the early 1990's.

Tommy Pattenden, Sean Cooper and Gary Peters have all signed for Whitehawk, Leighton Allen and John Fitzsimmons have moved on to join former assistant manager Gary Allen at Wealden, Aaron MacMillan and Tom Holden have joined Ringmer and promising striker Ian Costello has taken a year out to play for American Express in the Brighton League.

However, Mick received a boost this week when Keith Mtambara and former Lewes striker Jon Lockhart agreed to stay, while Colin Lloyd has signed from Pagham and Scott Allison has rejoined the club from Ringmer.

However, with a less than friendly start to the season, Mick knows the club face an uphill battle to avoid a gloomy campaign.

'We've got a very young squad here. We know it's going to be tough and the County League, in their wisdom, have given us eight games in August against all the top teams,' said Mick, who has taken over from Nigel Nash, who hopes to return in some capacity by October

'But I'm still confident. I can't wait to get playing and see how we fair.

'We played well against Shoreham in a friendly on Saturday when we drew 1-1, and then we beat Ray Wheaton's local side 6-2 on Tuesday.'

Mick is still hopeful that the Albion scheme can be resurrected, but is doubtful that a whole team of teenage aces will hold their own in the County League.

'I'm all for improving young players, but you can't play all youth players in the County League,' added Mick.

'It's physical and fast and they haven't got time to learn. They need senior players around them; they have to learn from people who know how to play. There needs to be a good mix.'

qFormer Saltdean United manager Glen Burvill is the new boss of County League division one side Ringmer.

Burvill, who was joint manager of Whitehawk with Ian Chapman last season, takes over from his former Tigers assistant manager, Glen Geard, who resigned on Thursday.

Geard led The Blues to second place and two cup finals last year, but was rocked with the departure of Glenn Davies, Damion Dobbyn and Shaun Grice to Withdean. Those departures opened the floodgates and, by last week, the Caburn outfit were left with virtually no senior players.

See Lewes edition for full story, and page 36 for Geard's views.