‘He’s someone I’ve liked for years’ – Horsham FC boss delighted to land former Chichester City goal machine

The 27-year-old started out at Bognor Regis Town before moving to Chichester, where his 16 goals in 21 games were instrumental in the Lilywhites’ 2023-24 Isthmian South East promotion campaign.

His form the following season brought him to wider notice, as he won the golden boot with 29 goals in City’s debut Isthmian Premier campaign.

Injury sidelined him for much of the 2025-26 season, but he still bagged seven goals in 20 appearances.

Wild moved to Chatham Town ahead of the 2026-27 campaign, but departed on October 11 after netting five goals in 10 games.

The striker made his Hornets debut in the 2-2 draw at Ebbsfleet United on Tuesday evening, providing the assist for Jamie Yila’s goal to make it 2-1.

Di Paola told us: “He left Chatham and was a free agent, so I sent him a text. He goes, the last text I got from you was in 2018 when you were asking me what I was up to!

“Jimmy is a good lad. He’s not really tested himself at this level.

“It was quite funny at Ebbsfleet. He came on, he got a smashed up eye, he got clattered three times, he was running around like a lost boy – and he came off the pitch and said, that was just madness! I just said to him, welcome to the National South!

“He got a really good flick for the goal and he’s someone I’ve liked for years.

“He’s not what he looks, if that makes sense. I think he’s more of a finesse player. He’s a good finisher, so on paper hopefully that helps us with our goalscoring.

“Since Lucas Rodrigues has been out, we haven’t really had an alternative. Ronan [Silva] has had a couple of games and Yils [Yila] has ended up playing up there. The plan was to play Nadders [Ashley Nadesan] and Lucas together but we’ve just never got to do it.

“Hopefully he will give us something different. I really like him. I’ve always liked talking to him and he’s a nice guy, so he’ll fit in well.”

Wild becomes Horsham’s second signing in less than a week, following the acquisition of defender George Cox from West Sussex neighbours Worthing on Friday.

And while signing a goalscorer was necessary, Di Paola admitted he may have to ‘shuffle the pack’ due to financial constraints.

He added: “We needed Jimmy because it was getting to the point where we just weren’t scoring enough. We’re going to have to shuffle the pack due to budgetary reasons, but we needed to get him in. We had to get him in because it was the right thing to do.

“That’s football. But we needed to get another striker in the building because we didn’t have one.

“The supporters always moan about it and we do know. We’re not stupid. They say, we need a striker, why don’t you get a striker? It’s not as straightforward as that because strikers, usually, are very expensive at this level and there’s not many of them out there and they’re on contracts.

“We can’t go out and spend fortunes on boys. We might just have to shuffle the pack. If one or two players aren’t doing it, we might have to make some adjustments because we’re not going to be able to run with what we’ve got.”

The Hornets entertain second-from-bottom Walton & Hersham this Saturday before travelling to Maidenhead United on Tuesday.

You can get Di Paola’s thoughts on Horsham’s upcoming fixtures tomorrow at sussexworld.co.uk/sport.