Grit and desire earns Bexhill a win - and praise from Light

Bexhill United boss Ryan Light praised his team’s ‘grit and desire’ after a late Tom Vickers goal earned a home victory over Peacehaven.

The goal was enough to satisfy home fans in the crowd of 182 in Bexhill’s first game for three weeks.

It extended their league unbeaten run to 18 games and left them sixth in the SCFL premier division ahead of games at Hassocks tomorrow and at home to Little Common next Wednesday.

Light said: “Having not played for a few weeks the first half an hour looked exactly like I thought it would – we huffed and puffed but we were a little disjointed.

“We changed the shape after about 20 minutes and that served us better as the game went on.

“I thought we showed far more grit and desire in the second half and thoroughly deserved the win despite leaving it late to score.

“Peacehaven are very organised and came into the game on good form after picking up points against Newhaven and Saltdean so we knew that it was going to be a tough afternoon, which made the result even more pleasing.”

On a tricky surface neither team could play the kind of football they would have liked with confidence and a fairly even first half ensued without too much incident.

Evan Archibald had an attempt from six yards saved before Max Walsh threatened – then the breakthrough came five minutes from time as a Walsh free-kick fell to Vickers.

Bexhill’s Nathan Lopez was given a red card for a rather crude tackle.