Relief – and joy at the latest chapter in the hard-to-believe story of Worthing Football Club
And breathe… Relief, more than anything, was my overriding emotion when the final whistle went against Ebbsfleet, bringing another remarkable chapter in the life of the phoenix that is Worthing Football Club to a close.
After three consecutive seasons of play-off heartbreak, earning promotion without having to endure the uncertainty of end-of-season, single-game play-offs felt nothing short of a blessing.
However, if we delve deeper into the ups and downs of the 2025-26 season, a much more complicated story begins to emerge.
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that, on several occasions, the club’s meteoric rise looked as though it might have faltered. Had we finished in mid-table, few would have complained.
The story of George and Co’s heroics in saving the club is well documented elsewhere, and many of us were simply content to still have a club to watch at all. But this fairytale still had more chapters to be written.
First came an extraordinary couple of weeks: the sale of Temi Babalola to Forest Green Rovers, followed by Chris Agutter’s departure to Sutton – both moves bringing a cash injection the club.
Our ABF chat group went into overdrive when it became clear that the return of Adam Hinshelwood – having left York a few weeks before Agutter moved on – was a possibility and we had some money in the bank. “He couldn’t… could he?” As we now know, he could – and that first piece of the jigsaw fell into place. The king was home.
Second, despite a sensational return to form in his early months back at the club, January and February proved incredibly tough for Hinsh and the lads. The one saving grace was that no team managed to break away from the chasing pack enough to become truly uncatchable. To even be in the title conversation after that spell of form felt like a minor miracle in itself.
The final storyline – arguably the most personal for the ABF – has unfolded over the last few months and centres on one of our own, Taylor Seymour.
Taylor – the lad who stood regularly with us in the Shed and who confided that he wasn’t sure he could ever handle the pressure of being Worthing’s number one.
When he was given the nod, he repaid that faith – and then some. We couldn’t be happier for him, knowing just how hard he worked to return to full fitness after injury and the mental and physical challenges he faced along the way.
Off the pitch, it’s been another successful season in our efforts to improve the atmosphere in the ground. There was plenty of debate about whether moving to the North Stand was the right decision, but anyone inside the stadium on Saturday will agree that it was rocking.
Seeing smiling faces, old and new, at full-time was a joy to behold and the celebrations at Thieves Kitchen carried on long into the night.
On a personal note, while my ten-year-old son Bertie has attended matches sporadically over the past few seasons, this year he has developed a genuine passion for the club and has been coming far more regularly. Sharing the Ebbsfleet game with him was incredibly special and I hope it marks the beginning of a long association with Worthing Football Club for him.
It’s never boring being a Worthing fan, is it? Roll on the 26-27 season, and the next chapter in this almost unbelievable footballing journey.