Horsham FC take home comfort after impressive week

The Hornets were ruthless on Saturday, beating seventh-placed Kingstonian 4-0 in front of a bumper crowd of 945.

Tom Kavanagh’s delightful double put the hosts two up at half-time. The winger opened the scoring with a sumptuous free kick before rifling a spectacular effort into the top corner for his second.

Tom Day and Harvey Sparks added to the scoreline in the second half to hammer home the Hornets dominance.

Tuesday night saw Horsham draw 2-2 against ninth-placed Carshalton Athletic. The Hornets lead 2-0 at the break, thanks to goals from Shamir Fenelon and Will Miles, but couldn’t see the game out.

Korrey Henry reduced the deficit for the Robins before Bradley Williams hit a deserved equaliser for the visitors with nine minutes to go.

Di Paola said: “Four points against teams in the top nine is not too bad. I don’t think we could ask for too much more over the two games.

“I think Saturday we were brilliant. It was almost like the perfect performance. Every player, to a man, was excellent.

“We should have scored more goals. We could have won by eight or nine, and I’m not even exaggerating, but the most pleasing thing was a clean sheet as well.

“On Tuesday night, I thought we were good for 35 minutes in the first half but maybe ten minutes at the end of the second half. They were good for the other period and I think a draw was fair.

"I just felt we lost our way and I needed to make some adjustments, so we’ll look at that. But credit to Carshalton, they went so attacking.

"They threw so many attacking players on the pitch, they just went for it, but it was frustrating we couldn’t hang on.”

This Saturday sees Horsham travel to Potters Bar Town. The 16th-placed Scholars sit three places and seven points behind the Hornets.

Di Paola will have almost a full complement of players for Saturday, a rare luxury this season, and the Horsham manager said his squad were up for the Potters Bar challenge.

He added: “We’ve got everyone back fit at the moment which is good. Apart from Danny Dudley we’ve got a full complement of players to choose from, which definitely helps.

“They’re another team that have had a lot of postponements, but they’re another good team with a good manager. They’ve got a lot of good attacking players.

“It’s going to be a tough one up there, but we’re doing alright and playing okay at the moment. We’ll be up for it.”

Meanwhile, the Hornets have confirmed that club legend Gary Charman will be honoured with a testimonial in the summer.

Horsham will honour Charman, who announced he will retire after next month's home game against Brightlingsea, with a game against Bognor Regis Town - another club Charman served with distinction.

The match, which is expected to feature several players from the two sides' respective historic FA Cup and FA Trophy runs in 2007 and 2016, will take place at The Camping World Community Stadium on Saturday, June 25.

The club will announce further details in the coming months.

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