1st round Sussex FA County Cup v Uckfield

On a beautiful sunny mid morning we travelled to Uckfield to take on free scoring and unbeaten Uckfield Grasshoppers. Their squad was big, with 2 players nearly 6 foot and full of pace we knew why they were unbeaten. A very physical encounter was On the cards and on 10 minutes, the impressive Luke B got a good punch to the face which saw him replaced by Harry Thompson. We took the lead on 11 minutes with a goal from Jude Harding who was nursing a deep cut into his knee. The physical encounter was there for all to see and we went 2-0 when The Rock, Theo scored a great goal. Harry Thompson was man marking Uckfields main threat who was a very tall and quick lad but Harry coped with him really well. It was on 29 minutes when the game had a major flash point. Archie Waddle, our pocket rocket of a midfielder took an extremely high tackle on his quad. The lad picked up a yellow card and Archie sadly would play no further part of tge game. From tge resulting free kick Jude smashed the ball into tge box which was missed by everyone and made its way into the net. 3-0 up at Half time but the lads were all concerned with Archies injury and before they went out for the 2nd half the lads got together and our chant went "who's this for......ARCHIE...."
In the 2nd half it was very much more of the same. A very physical game but both teams understood that they didn't need to push the boundaries. On 49 minutes Jude Harding completed his hat trick and capped off a brilliant performance. On 49 minutes, Niko Joseph was rewarded for his hard work with a goal. There was still time for Niko to rattle the bar from a free kick taken on the halfway line. 5-0 winners. A few bruises, one cut lip, one very sore leg but a great victory. All the lads put in one hell of a shift, Mason, Adam, Luke and Jude. It was a very quiet game for for Daniel who kept his 2nd clean sheet of the weekend, mainly down to amazing defensive work from Harry, Luke, Theo and the very impressive Billy Turner.