Six of the best for EP but Di Paola’s grounded

EP, promoted as runaway champions from Division 2 last season, remain top of the County League table after a 3-1 victory at Lancing, who finished runners-up last year.

East Preston manager Dominic Di Paola is still not getting carried away, though, and said: “Obviously, I’m delighted with how we’ve started but Pagham won 14 games on the spin at the start of last season.

“We should be top-eight or maybe top-six this season, although I still don’t think we’ve quite clicked this season and there is more to come.

“We brought in a lot of players this season and changed our forwards, so it takes a while for things to click. I don’t think it’s because Charlie Oatway has gone as he missed a lot of games last season and we’ve still got a lot of quality.

“But I still think it will be one of Redhill or Peacehaven, who win the league. Peacehaven, on paper, should win it but Redhill have signed three ex-professionals, so are strong as well.

“Pagham will be up there and then there’s Hassocks as well, who can upset teams.

“Last year, we played 34 games to win the league but we’ve still got more than 34 league games to play this season, although I could not have asked for a better start.”

For a full match report from EP’s win at Lancing see this week’s Gazette.