'I can't remember a season like it' says East Sussex Football League fixture secretary

The East Sussex Football League fixture secretary says he 'can't remember a season like it' after another weekend of matches was decimated by the weather.
The waterlogged pitch at The Polegrove - where Bexhill Town (East Sussex League) and Bexhill United (Southern Combination League) play their home matches - taken on Friday afternoonThe waterlogged pitch at The Polegrove - where Bexhill Town (East Sussex League) and Bexhill United (Southern Combination League) play their home matches - taken on Friday afternoon
The waterlogged pitch at The Polegrove - where Bexhill Town (East Sussex League) and Bexhill United (Southern Combination League) play their home matches - taken on Friday afternoon

Just three matches involving the league's clubs were played on Saturday, none of them on grass pitches, as yet more wet weather caused all the other games to be postponed.

Fixture secretary Kevin Bray said: "We've had 24 weeks of the season and some teams have only played five league games. I can't remember a season like it.

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"We've had lots of seasons where we've lost five or six weeks in a row to snow and ice or wet weather, but this has been since the middle of October. Just every week has been hit by the weather.

"I think we've reached 250 postponements this year. I can only find one year going back that's worse than that. It's just been a long, continuous programme of postponements."

With a number of teams facing chronic fixture backlogs over the final two months of the campaign, the league will hold a meeting next Thursday to discuss how it plans to tackle the predicament.

Division Two club Wittersham and Division Three outfit Hawkhurst United II both have 13 league matches remaining, and a number of other sides have yet to reach the midway point in their league programmes - even though we're now into March.

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What's more, the league's premier cup competition - the Premier Travel Chauffeurs Challenge Cup - has two last 16 ties still to be played.

To make matters worse, a lot of the teams still involved in the cup competitions are behind with their league fixtures as a result.

"We've got a meeting on the 12th where we're going to discuss lots of options about what we're going to do," continued Bray.

"Lots of the cup competitions are well behind schedule and I don't know what we're going to do about it. It's a difficult one.

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"At the moment I'm still fairly confident we will get the league finished. Possibly some of the cups may not get done. If there's any we can get finished, we will have to try and do them.

"We've had to cancel cup competitions in the past. I don't know what we're going to decide on at the moment. All options are on the table."

Apart from Hollington United II's Sussex Bluefin Junior Challenge Cup semi-final at home to Harting tomorrow, the schedule for the next two Saturdays is made up entirely of league fixtures as the cups are put on hold until the meeting determines their fate.

"We're only doing league games the next two weeks," added Bray. "Once a decision is made on Thursday, we will go from there.

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"It needs the weather to improve. I've got lots of teams saying 'don't give us a home game for four or five weeks because it's going to take that long for the pitch to dry out'."

Bray says that double-headers are in the pipeline for some of the clubs with the biggest backlogs, a few matches are planned for Easter Monday and late season midweek evening games are almost guaranteed.

The East Sussex League normally aims to finish its season on the first weekend in May.

The league has been asked by the Sussex County FA if it requires an extension to get all the games played.

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Bray has asked a lot of clubs if there's any chance of their pitches being available in May, although by that time many will be taken out of action by local councils or handed over to cricket clubs for the summer months.

The small amount of action which did take place last weekend, meanwhile, happened on artificial 3G pitches.

At Eastbourne Sports Park, Hawkhurst United II won 1-0 away to Hampden Park in only their seventh Division Three fixture of the season.

Seventh-placed Hawkhurst are now just one point behind sixth-placed Hampden Park having played seven fewer matches - and 10 points adrift of leaders Northiam 75 II with five games in hand.

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Old Town Lions' hopes of finishing second in Division Four suffered a blow as they were hammered 10-1 by seventh-placed Sovereign Saints II at Bexhill College.

George Sambrook scored a hat-trick for the Saints, Sam Westlake and Ben Usher each bagged a brace, and there was one apiece for David Green, Ryley McAndrew and Kieran Parks.

Old Town, whose consolation was netted by James Downs, remain nine points clear of third-placed Battle Baptists III, albeit having now played five more times.

Unbeaten leaders AFC Hollington, incidentally, require eight points from their remaining six contests to be crowned champions.

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Also at Bexhill College, Mountfield United pulled off a splendid 1-0 victory away to South Coast Athletico in the quarter-finals of the Robertsbridge Charity Junior Cup, sponsored by British Gypsum Ltd.

A solitary first half goal was enough for a Mountfield side lying bottom of Division Two to defeat an Athletico team sitting top of the same tier.

Mountfield's reward is a home semi-final against another Division Two outfit, St Leonards Social II.