Match in pictures: Littlehampton Town beaten by Hartley Wintney

They welcomed Hartley Wintney to The Sportsfield hoping to register their first win of what’s been a difficult start to the Isthmian South Central division – but were beaten 8-1.

Joe Lewis-Evans and Danilo Pereira put 2-0 up by the half-hour mark then Scott Faber was sent off. Sid Gbla’s penalty made it 3-0 before the break and further goals followed from Danilo Pereira, Jonny Efedje (2), Sid Gbla and Kevin Ngombi.

The loss leaves the Marigolds 20th in the table and needing a quick improvement when they host Cobham on Tuesday night.

Joint Golds boss Mitch Hand gave an honest assessment afterwards: “Saturday was Murphy’s Law, anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong!

"You have to contextualise a result like that, though, a complete anomaly – although we haven’t started the season on fire, we’ve been picking up points against good sides.

"There’s two things that are clear as day for us, though: our disciplinary record is shocking and that’s on myself and George and needs to be addressed, and we cannot compete when we’ve got 50 per cent of our strongest 11 on the sidelines injured or suspended.

"We’re bringing bodies through the door and results are going to turn. It’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves and that’s not in our nature anyway, the remit for the next couple of games is to win back some pride after the worst home performance one of my teams have ever given – and we’ve got a game tomorrow (Sep 22) night where that has to happen.”

See pictures from Golds 1 Hartley Wintney 8 on this page and those linked.