Horsham FC rue ‘bad day at the office’ as wonderful winning run comes to an end at bogey team Folkestone

Adam Yussuf gave Invicta a third minute lead from the penalty spot, before Jack Jebb doubled the hosts’ advantage on 27 minutes.

Folkestone wrapped up the three points in second half stoppage time courtesy of Dan Smith.

Despite the defeat, the Hornets remain fifth in the Isthmian Premier, in the final play-off spot – six points ahead of place-below Chichester City.

Di Paola said: “A number of decisions didn’t go our way. The penalty was incredibly harsh. It deflected off two people and hit Cookie’s [Charlie Hester-Cook] hand.

“We scored a legitimate goal [in the first half] that was chalked off for offside. Nothing went our way.

“I don’t think we were brilliant. We didn’t really warrant a win anyway. I think you’ve got to be better than that to win away.

“We’ve been on a good run. Good runs don’t go on forever.

“We’ve got to chalk it off as a bad day at the office then reset, go again, and try and get some good prep in for our next batch of games at home.”

Horsham have now gone 18 years without a win at Folkestone - and Saturday’s defeat was their 10th consecutive loss at Cheriton Road.

But Di Paola paid no heed to the Hornets’ Folkestone hoodoo, admitting Horsham would find it difficult getting a result against anyone after going down to an early goal away from home.

He continued: “Sometimes you have these weird anomalies in football. Sometimes things just don’t go to plan.

“If you concede inside the first three minutes away from home against anyone it’s hard.

“Last year it was an own goal and Lew Carey made a mistake for their goal. Sometimes it just goes that way. We’re not doing anything any differently.

“If no one talked about it, you wouldn’t notice that we hadn’t won down there.

“But what I can say, in the time I have been at the club, we’ve had a lot of different players. I think the first couple of times we went down there, we’ve only got Harvey [Sparks] who has played in them. It’s a long time ago now.

“What I will say, they can be a very good side, Folkestone. They should probably be in the play-offs, and I think they’re underachieving this year with the players they’ve got down there. They can beat anyone on their day.”

Horsham host 17th-placed Dulwich Hamlet on Saturday, hoping to avenge their 5-2 away defeat in September, before entertaining relegation-threatened Sussex rivals Hastings United on Tuesday evening.

Hornets forward Shamir Fenelon is once again expected to miss out through injury.

Looking ahead to this weekend’s clash with Hamlet, Di Paola said: “They hammered us at their place. That was a dark day for us.

“At this stage of the season, they’re fighting to get out of the mess they’ve gotten themselves in and we’re wanting to do as well as we can as well.

“In another four or five games you’ll probably see one or two teams lose a bit of interest if they’re mid-table, but at the moment most teams have something to play for.

“It’s going to be a really challenging game, but we’ll attack it the way we always do and hopefully get the result we need.”