Sussex football teams hoping winter weather relents

Only one Sussex League fixture – reserve game at Peacehaven – survived last weekend’s big freeze and only a handful of matches went ahead in the West Sussex League.

County league division-one side Pagham lost two games in four days to the weather – Saturday’s second-versus-third league game at Lancing and Tuesday’s home Brighton Charity Cup tie with Horsham.

Chichester’s home game against Hassocks and Selsey’s match at home to East Grinstead were among other first-division games lost, while Midhurst, Bosham and Barnham were all left kicking their heels as divisions two and three were wiped out.

At the moment the forecast is looking much better for this weekend – with temperatures in the south due to rise to 4C by Saturday.

Pagham head to Three Bridges, Chichester go to Sidley and Selsey are at home to Rye, all in division one.

For Pagham it will be a chance to get their promotion bid back on course after an indifferent run which has seen them fall behind top two Rye and Lancing.

Chichester badly need results after being left adrfit at the bottom of the table. Midhurst host Westfield in division two while in the third division, Barnham host Ifield Edwards.

The West Sussex League should also be able to swing back into action.

Sussex League chairman Peter Bentley does not expect a backlog of fixtures at the end of the season.

He said: “I don’t think it will be a problem.

“The difficulty is only likely to come in division three where it’s a 16-team league and only four sides have floodlights.

“One or two clubs might have a problem but as long as this cold weather doesn’t last longer then a month I think we’ll be all right.”