Lions on a roll... Bosham and Selsey win too

Here are the reports...

Pagham 2 Hailsham Town 0

Southern Combination premier

Mark Bennett recorded his second win as Pagham boss and finally nailed the home hoodoo as Hailsham lost 2-0 to an organised Lions side.

The Lions went with young star David Crouch up front in tandem with Terrell Lewis.

Early chances came at both ends as James Binfield scrambled the ball away from Hailsham’s Adebola Sotoyinbo, with Lewis and Crouch giving Stringers keeper Sheldon Levett a touch of the ball.

Dan Martin almost got the opener on 11 minutes, a soaring shot going narrowly over Levett’s bar. The next clear-cut chance fell for the visitors, but Jake Hawker cleared off Pagham’s line.

The home fans thought they should have had a penalty on 20 minutes, Crouch being felled in the area. The referee had other ideas.

Keeper James Binfield did much to keep the Lions in the game and Harry Mills’ shot was one of many well dealt with.

Emmanuel Okunga was played in on goal but Binfield was again on hand to scramble the ball behind for a corner. Martin’s tackle on Tristan Jarvis earned him talking-to.

Sotoyinbo went on a run just after the half-hour, but Pagham’s Andy Brown was alert to the threat. From the corner, Binfield pulled off a top-class save to deny the Stringers.

Four minutes before the break, Lewis latched on to a pinpoint Ryan Cox cross to hit home. The dying seconds saw the Lions awarded a free-kick that saw Lewis head just over.

After the break, Cox shot just wide from a free-kick.

Goal number two came on 57 minutes. Again the Cox/Lewis partnership worked well as Lewis struck a fine shot into the net.

The first booking came on 63 minutes as Hailsham’s McAlpine saw yellow for taking out Lloyd Rowlatt.

A double substitution for the Lions a couple of minutes later saw Bennett bring on strikers Rob Wimble and Josh Irish, replacing Andy Brown and Crouch.

Cox almost made it three for Pagham on 66 minutes, striking the crossbar from long range. Hailsham sub Tyler Capon’s shot on 68 ended up in Binfield’s arms.

Wimble tested Levett, while the visitors relied on free-kicks.

Rowlatt tried his luck, but was off-target. Harry Mills went on a mazy run for the visitors but a Davidson tackle stopped him from scoring.

PAGHAM; Binfield, A Brown (Wimble 63), Davidson, Hawker, Wollers, Rowlatt, Swain, Martin, Crouch (Irish 63), Lewis, Cox. Subs not used: R Brown, Warren

JON ROSE

* Goals by Peter Beadle and Liam Humphreys earned the Lions a 2-0 midweek win at Broadbridge Heath. Pagham are seventh ahead of the weekend’s trip to Lancing.

Bosham 2 Alfold 1

Southern Combination division two

Bosham grabbed the win in injury time as Matt Docherty rounded off a sweeping move to leave Alfold gutted.

In tough conditions the game got off to a spicy start with both sides being a little over-exuberant during the opening exchanges and referee Paul Barratt needed to step in to stamp his authority on proceedings, something that seemed to settle both teams.

David Burke was substituted early for the Royals – the midfielder was in danger of seeing red having gone into the referee’s notebook early on.

Alfold started to ask questions of the Bosham defence. The defensive quartet of Andy Probee, Ben Blanshard, Callum Fewell and Neil Redman needed to show their strength and determination to prevent the visitors from getting their noses in front.

The Royals were having the better of things but chances were few and far between. Bosham, on the other hand, did get efforts on target, and Jake Lafferty brought out the best in keeper Matt Jones.

However, Jones was to have moment to forget approaching the interval. Lafferty hit a speculative shot from long distance – the breeze caught the effort and Jones had to quickly adjust his momentum but he got it horribly wrong in only parrying the ball up and over his own head and into the net.

Bosham were bought back to earth soon after the interval as Alfold’s Ryan Pelham got to the byline and fired across the area to the unmarked Andy Sullivan, who had an easy task to ram the ball home.

The match picked up in pace after that, despite worsening conditions. Either side could have snatched the points but in injury time the Robins broke swiftly from the back and with Alfold at sixes and sevens, James Wilson produced a perfect ball to the far post for Docherty to slam home to the huge acclaim of the supporters on the sidelines.

Bosham probably deserved the victory over the 90 minutes but Alfold certainly left feeling frustrated at having let what would have been a deserved point slip by.

BOSHAM: Magee, Probee, Redman, Fewell, Blanshard, Bell, Wilson, Giambelardini, Dowden, Docherty, Lafferty. Subs: Storey, Bryant, Bulbeck.

ALAN PRICE

Our local division-one sides had mixed fortunes.

Midhurst staged a late comeback at home to Steyning but two goals by Lewis Hamilton couldn’t prevent a 3-2 defeat.

A 72nd-minute David Turner goal and injury-time strike by Ryan Morey earned improving Selsey a 2-0 home win over Bexhill.

But Sidlesham slipped to a 4-2 loss at Little Common despite John Phillips being on target.

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking sports news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be among the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

Share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!