A night for the diehards: Hastings United end Eastbourne United’s hopes of a Sussex Cup shock

A damp and chilly night. A driving westerly wind straight off the Channel. A playing surface still in rehab after the wettest weekend of the winter. And a Princes Park Oval that still, on every visit, breathes with the memories of decades past.

The 60s under Ron Greenwood and Gordon Jago. The 70s and another night game, an FA Vase quarter-final in front of 3,000, with ebullient Billericay Town fans claiming the old grandstand as their own, before the locals had even arrived.

And much more recently, the 2016 Eastbourne United of Simon Rowland falling frustratingly at the final fence, with a Wembley FA Vase final in touching distance. Football grounds nowadays, new-builds like Lego sets for grown-ups, may have the facilities and the concourses and the chip-n-pin admission. But they will never have the history.

Ironically, both of these clubs are entangled in development plans. Eastbourne United’s ambitious project to install a 4G pitch goes before the planning committee in May or June. And visitors Hastings United are still in their own unwelcome limbo. The move to Tilekiln is still, apparently, in gridlock, and a fallback ground-share at Priory Lane is likely to be shelved.

Club officials seem not to have quite ruled out reverting to a revamped Pilot Field – a stadium steeped in its own history, where this scribe once watched Bobby Smith, once of Tottenham Hotspur and England, pound the turf in the Us claret and blue.

But back to Senior Cup business. 260 hardy souls had gathered to welcome two committed, honest football teams on to the Oval’s green grass. Hastings manager Gary Elphick, with other fish to fry and an Isthmian Premier play-off place within grasping distance, still fielded a strong starting line-up. Former Eastbourne United favourite Kane Penn returned to the Oval and made a lively impact.

The home side were nominal underdogs, but you’d never have thought it. An opening half saw plenty of midfield combat but little goalmouth action. One early right-wing break by Eastbourne produced a skimming low cross, but nobody on the end of it. Hastings were looking to play expansive football, with often four forwards across the front of their team, but bumpy and slippery conditions were hindering them.

George Taggart, often catching the eye with the smartest left foot in town, fizzed a cracking free-kick just over the Hastings crossbar on 38 minutes – but that was as close as either side came in a 45 minutes hallmarked by hard running and some concrete challenges.

It hadn’t been a pretty first half, but supporters of both sides remained obstinately optimistic. This reporter shared pitchside predictions on one side with Justin – who lives in Bexhill but works in Eastbourne and wasn’t sure which side to support – and on the other side with a Soccer Mom (Sussex version) whose 15-year-old plays in the Hastings academy, never misses a first team game, and enlists mum as designated driver. Fine drizzle curtained the Oval floodlights, and the wispy aroma of hot pasties tempted spectators…

Back to the second-half action, and the claret and blue visitors seemed to be taking control. In their midfield, the sharp passing skills which had earned Ryan Worrall a National South shirt as a 16-year-old under Tommy Widdrington, were as sharp as ever. A surprising substitution saw Worrall replaced just before the hour. But Hastings looked likelier. A Penn 30-yarder skimmed the home crossbar, and the crowd sensed a break in the deadlock.

But it never quite came. Eastbourne United were being forced back into a kind of nine-one formation – with ageless Bailo Camara (who incidentally led the line in Widdrington’s first ever Borough fixture, at Boreham Wood in 2014) battling alone up front, before being subbed for Sam Cooper. Referee Martyn Milligan, admirably level-headed amid the combative but never ugly action, did dish out four second-half yellows, but the minutes drained away.

And so to spot kicks. Hastings’ Ben Pope struck the first one to set his team on the way to a perfect five – while Eastbourne’s first kick had been saved by Louis Rogers to leave the home side always playing a desperate catch-up. Indeed, Kane Penn’s ultimate winner was as tight as the contest had been: parried by James Broadbent, only to curl in an achingly slow parabola over the keeper, under the crossbar – and into the quarter-finals.

Two hundred and sixty diehard spectators. A couple of dozen committed footballers. A full-blooded, whole-hearted encounter, and a credit to both clubs.