Sussex Senior Cup Quarter Final
The Saffrons, Eastbourne
Admission: £7.00
Programme: £1.50
Attendance: 561
This evening I decided to pay visit to The Saffrons for over a year, for a very attractive looking fixture for the home side, with the young professionals of Sussex's only Premier League club paying a visit to the modest surroundings of The Saffrons in the quarter finals of the Sussex Senior Cup.
Eastbourne are having a fairly decent season so far in the Southern Combination League Premier Division, currently in seventh place, following 14 wins and six draws from their 26 league games so far, 11 points adrift of the leaders, Littlehampton Town. They came into this game in decent form, winning their last 3 games in all competitions, two in the league and one in the Sussex RUR Cup. It was nice to see the club rewarded with a plum tie against Brighton, after their scheduled opponents in the previous round, EFL League Two outfit Crawley Town withdrew from the competition due to a lack of available players. In the previous two rounds, they beat SCFL Division outfit opposition, winning 6-0 at home to Midhurst & Easebourne before beating Shoreham 0-2 away. Brighton & Hove Albion Development are having a decent season in the Premier League 2 Division One, having won six and drawn five of their 14 league games so far. To reach this stage of the Sussex Senior Cup, they have triumphed against Isthmian League South East Division opposition in the form of Haywards Heath Town 0-6 away, before beating Chichester City 0-1 away.
On a chilly but dry evening, the plucky underdogs put in a really good performance, and they could consider themselves really unlucky not to score, but after the hosts had a great chance to open the scoring inside the first two minutes, when Kevin Farragher met a corner with a glancing header, but the ball went just wide of the far post, Brighton rather eased to victory and always looked in control of the tie. They opened the scoring on four minutes, Todd Miller breaking with the ball down the left wing before crossing to an unmarked Ben Wilson, and he swept the ball home. And Brighton doubled their lead on 8 minutes when Wilson broke forward down the middle before laying the ball off to Zac Emmerson, who stroked the ball home from a slightly tight angle. Brighton had several other good chances to increase their lead, but with Eastbourne still battling hard and looking a threat during their occasional breaks forward, they were not completely out of the game at half time.
The second half was a quieter affair, with Eastbourne continue to work hard to get back in the game, and were denied twice by the woodwork, but the game was finally put to bed in the 81st minute when Todd Miller's cross into the six yard box deflected off defender Sam Cole into his own net. They came close to claiming a fourth, which would have been really unfair on Eastbourne, when Elliott Jenks dinked the ball over the keeper but a defender cleared the ball right on the line.
So it was Brighton who go into the hat for the semi-finals, along with Worthing, Horsham and Three Bridges. But it was still an evening to savour for the home club, profiting from a bumper crowd, with the Pier Pressure "ultras" in fine voice throughout, and the players can certainly be proud of a decent performance again their young professional opponents.
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