TEAM SPORTS – 2023: Highs and Lows of the Competitive Year
HUGH SULLIVAN
Football
It’s been a tumultuous year off the field for Hastings United. The quashing of the long-pursued ambition of owners Daren Burney and Peter Sherlock to relocate the home stadium from Pilot Field to Tilekiln led not only to their own departure and sale of the club; CEO Billy Wood, manager Gary Elphick and most of his team went as well. Incoming manager Paul Barnes, compelled to find a virtually new squad of players, lasted only two months of the new season.
Chris Agutter and Ben Cornelius reunited at Pilot Field
Yet, from the perspective of longer-standing supporters, the outcome this December feels oddly stabilised. Not only is it likely that the club will now stay at Pilot Field for the foreseeable future. Former stalwart ‘U’s player Dean White and his son Ben head the boardroom. Among Barnes’ new on-field recruits were two former academy prospects Adam Lovatt and Davide Rodari returning from League 2 clubs, both better and stronger for a couple of years away in more exalted company. Elphick’s predecessor as manager, Chris Agutter, is back at the helm after similar professional experience at Stevenage, with former coach Ben Cornelius also reinstated. Another former academy high-flyer, Jack Bates, has re-joined on loan.
Agutter has immediately reversed the team’s eight-match losing run in league and major cups to gain six wins in his first eight matches. In this form they look capable of not just protecting their status in the Isthmian Premier League, but of pushing for a top five play-off place.
Cricket
Hastings & St Leonards Priory captain Tom Gillespie predicted at the start of the 2023 season that, while they lacked star players, their strength in depth would see them do well in Division 2 of the Sussex League, having been relegated from the Premier Division the previous summer.
Hastings Priory cricketers – significant contributions from all
That’s exactly how it turned out. With every player in the side capable of making a significant contribution with bat, ball or both, they finished equal on points with Worthing at the top of the league table, taking the championship by a marginal differential in their head-to-head contests with the West Sussex side.
Harry Scowen scored a couple of centuries at the top of the batting line-up, and generally he and/or Dylan Woolley could be relied upon to give the side a good start. No other batsmen finished among the top 30 run-scorers of the division, so that high total scores were rarely achieved, and crucial individual innings were interspersed with a certain propensity for batting collapses.
The bowling attack, on the other hand, was very steady, with few weak links. John Morgan claimed 41 wickets with his seamers and was well supported by pace bowlers Satchi Mahendran and Alex Barton (when available), while Seaver Cowley, Adam Page and Aussie recruit Alex Osborne all took wickets regularly.
Gillespie experienced an indifferent season with the bat, but he – and, when he was absent, Scowen as his deputy – enjoyed a remarkable run of fortune at the toss-up, winning 14 out of 16, including the last ten in succession. Almost invariably, that meant putting opponents in to bat, keeping them to a modest score, then finding just enough resilience somewhere in the batting order to overhaul it. In the last five completed games the target was never more than 136, Priory winning successively by five wickets, then by four, again by four, by seven and finally by two, as last opponents Brighton and Hove, bowled out for 98 (and already relegated), almost wrecked their victory march.
Next summer, back once more in the Premier League, Priory will need to find a lot more consistency in their batting. However, with youngsters like Woolley, Cowley, Iden McCleave and Harvey Faulkner, all matured in comparison to two seasons ago, they should be equipped to hold their own.
Hockey
South Saxons continue to field four men’s and two women’s teams in the South East Hockey league, all managing to play their home games on the ageing sand-dressed astroturf pitch at Horntye. They’ve known for several years now that they’re likely to need another home if the proposed redevelopment of the cricket ground alongside goes ahead. Claremont School still seems the most likely destination.
Jeremy Bunday, chairman for the previous 20 years, has finally found a successor – Toby Reed, himself a player with the club for virtually the whole of that period and former first team captain, has stepped up in his place.
On the field, the ladies’ first team won a thrilling three-way contest for the 2022-23 Division 1 Martlets League title. They went into their final match at home to Brighton & Hove equal on points at the head of the league table with Mid-Sussex and with Middleton. Saxons secured a tight 2-0 victory, whilst their rivals could only manage a draw and a defeat between them.
This season, promoted to Division 1 East, the team has – as expected – found the standard rather tougher. A record of one win and seven defeats in their first ten matches needs to be improved. Established players Kat Jenner, Caitlin Merison and Abbie Merison remain the team’s leading lights, but a number of young players have also caught the eye. Sadly, 18-year-old defender Sophie Ford, who gained an award as young player of the year, has died since.
The men’s first team, playing at the equivalent level in their own Division 1 East, are similarly finding it hard going. They kept their status at the end of last season but, having won just two matches out of ten this autumn, it will be another struggle this time round. Paddy Cornish, captain for the last six years, has given way to Lloyd Williams.
Rugby
Hastings & Bexhill (H & B) have suffered a chastening year in terms of results on the field. They were relegated from the Counties 2 Kent League in March, after losing nine of their ten matches from January onwards – some by narrow margins to teams they might have beaten on another day, some by crushing scorelines, particularly when confronted by the 2nd XVs of larger clubs. Able to field several individual players accustomed to the power and pace of higher league rugby and/or aided by commercial sponsors, these teams tend to overwhelm their literally smaller opponents.
H & B: a close-knit bunch of players
This autumn, H & B have found a similar pattern in the lower 3 Kent League. After an early 64-19 thrashing of Whitstable, they came up against the old boy 2nd XVs of Tonbridge Judd and Alleyns respectively and found each too strong. As a result of gaps in the schedule during the Rugby World Cup and a postponement due to extreme wet weather, they then played only one further match between the end of September and mid-November – another loss, to Gravesend 2nds.
What has held them back in this campaign has been a series of serious injuries. Captain Harry Walker broke his arm in the opening game. Former captain Bruce Steadman has been sidelined with a shoulder injury, as has key second row forward Calvin Crosby-Clarke (shoulder, also) and Michael Clifford (broken thumb). Flying winger Tom Hirst suffered a broken arm in the match against Sittingbourne. There’s also the perennial problem of absences for other commitments. H & B had five league points docked when they were unable to fulfil a league fixture against Old Elthamians for lack of front row forwards.
However, recent home victories over New Ash Green and Sittingbourne have lifted morale, star flanker Frazer McManus has returned after absence through work, and there’s an expectation that H & B will not face further relegation at the season’s end.
The coaching team of Steve McManus and David Hirst, former players and youth coaches within the club, provide experience and reassuring continuity to a close-knit bunch of players, most of whom have come up through junior ranks. In the meantime, youth and girls’ rugby has been flourishing at the club: its longer term future seems in good hands.
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