Hand relishes 4-4 draw and says: How boring is it to watch centre-halves pass the ball to each other 500 times?

A few days after beating Bognor 6-1 in the Sussex Senior Cup, the Marigolds served up another goal-feast for the Sportsfield faithful as goals by Jordan Layton, Dave Herbert, Nodirbek Bobomurodov and Dion Jarvis earned a point.

"To be honest I loved it,” said joint boss Hand.

Littlehampton 4 Hythe 4 in pictures by Stephen Goodger.

"Recently we’re giving people value for money again, with ten goals scored in the past two home games.

"Hythe are absolutely brilliant – a proper throwback of a side: long throws into the box, all set-plays loading bodies on the line defensively.

"It was genuinely a great game – playing that way is frowned upon now and I’ve no idea why. How boring is it to watch centre-halves pass the ball to each other 500 times before playing forward?

"Saturday was two direct attacking sides going blow for blow for 90 minutes.

"I thought we were the better side and should have won the game but I’ll take a draw against them.

"I’ve never once moaned about a referee’s performance and I won’t start now although I know there will be people anticipating I will. We were unlucky is all I’ll say – we could have had two penalties, but I’m sure we will get our slice of luck at some point.”

Golds sit 15th and welcome eighth-placed Three Bridges to the Sportsfield on Saturday and third-placed Sittingbourne on Tuesday.

Hand said: “We need to keep the performances at the level they’re at.”