Sussex County League Division 2
Pilot Field, Hastings United
Admission: £4.00
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: 100
Match Rating: 4
As a result of their clubhouse being burnt to the ground last month, Westfield are currently unable to play their home games at their Parish Field ground, which was a desperately sad occurence for such a friendly and well-run village club as Westfield. To their immense credit, their near neighbours Hastings United are allowing Westfield to play their home games at their Pilot Field ground, as well as agreeing to play Westfield in a specially arranged friendly with all proceeds going to Westfield's fund for a new clubhouse. The excellent Ryman League facilities at the Pilot Field must seem a world away from what Sussex County League Division 2 footballers are used to, and as usual, the Pilot Field pitch was immaculate, which must also make a very welcome change from the long grassed bobbly pitches usually found in the league.
The Pilot Field is an excellent stadium these days, with a good long old-fashioned stand along one touchline and stands behind both goals, although the ground certainly does suffer from the fans being separated from the pitch by a gravel track inside the perimeter fence. The programme is a reasonable effort of 32 pages which contains the essentials and messages from the managers and chairnen, but recent Westfield results would have been nice and the programme is a little too full of adverts.
The game itself was entertaining, quite even and competitive and with both sides putting together plenty of attacking moves. A goalless scoreline at half time was quite a surprise, and that's how it remained until the 70th minute when Westfield took the lead. For the next ten minutes, Westfield looked irresistable, adding two further goals within the next 8 minutes, including a 25 yard rocket which flew past the keeper into the corner. To Southwick's credit, they didn't throw in the towel and pulled a goal back with 8 minutes left on the clock, and had several chances to get back into the game, but in the end, Westifeld ran out fairly comfortable winners and thereby rose to eighth in the league, whereas Southwick remained firmly in the bottom half.
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