Bexhill United 2 v 2 Roffey

Friday 28th August 2026, Kick-off 19.30

Southern Combination League Premier Division

Little Common Recreation Ground, Bexhill-on-Sea

Admission: £8.00 

Programme: Free

Attendance: 130

A match report can be read by clicking here, also copied and pasted below.

Bexhill and Roffey fight out Friday night draw

It was a rare treat for Bexhill fans to have both Friday night football under the lights, and at a venue close to home, to get the Bank Holiday weekend underway.

Having played “home” games at a range of far flung venues while the cricket season sees out its dog days and we wait for the Polegrove to be returned to football use, it was lovely to be able to use the facilities at nearby Little Common for the league clash with Roffey.

It may be the last knockings of summer but there was a definite whiff of autumn in the air as the wind picked up across the recreation ground and the lights kicked into action.

Pirates boss Jay Skinner-Swain shuffled his pack again, drafting Tom Vickers into central defence and shifting Dale Penn out to left-back.

Roffey are no mugs and have had a decent start to the season, sitting in the top half of the table close to Bexhill, and they shaped up strongly in the opening exchanges to go toe to toe with their hosts.

They weren’t in town to play for a draw and that created space behind their back four. Jack Shonk and Ash Latuske came close to exploiting that on five minutes when they broke clear with Latuske seeing his shot dealt with by the keeper.

Roffey were testing the Bexhill defence but the game was wide open and on 18 minutes the ball fell for Charlie Playford and, with the Boars keeper in no man’s land, he just failed to lob him from distance.

Minutes later Bexhill broke through.  A clever free-kick from Richie Welch was picked up inside the box by Ryan Moir and he rolled the defender to juggle the ball onto his left peg and rifle it home.

Roffey came strong as the clock wound down to half-time and on the brink of the break they levelled the score with a deep corner nodded back into the danger zone by the impressive Tresor Difika and Meeres snapped up the chance to head it home.

The game was well set up for the second half with two evenly matched teams but as the wind picked up it started to influence the business on the pitch.

The play switched from end to end but both defences held strong until the 55th minute when great strength and pressing from Theo Coombs won the ball for Bexhill just inside the Roffey half and he drove on before setting up Moir with a great pass that allowed him to cut in and deliver a quality finish.

This was one of those games when you knew a one goal lead was unlikely to be enough. Roffey pressed Bexhill, shoving the Pirates back deeper and deeper.  There was some last-ditch defending as Bexhill fought to hold the three points and on 80 minutes Finn Holter got down sharply to pull off an important save.

It was a warning, and a couple of minutes later Roffey got their equaliser.  Mase picked up on a through ball and smashed it first time past Holter into the roof of the net.

Bexhill went looking for the chance to take the lead for a third time and threw on subs to inject fresh legs and energy but at the final whistle it remained 2-2.  Probably a fair reflection on the game and a great advert for Friday night football.