A very warm April day took me down to the south coast, to visit the Sportsfield ground, home of Littlehampton Town of the Isthmian League South East Division. This game meant that I had been to every ground in the division

The Sportsfield Ground has a published capacity of 4000, having been in receipt of funding in 2024, in order to erect a new grandstand, providing seating for 154. In 2022, when Littlehampton Town reached the FA Vase final at Wembley, they achieved a club record attendance of 3142, against Loughborough University, in the semi-final at the Sportsfield.

This season has been a battle for joint managers of the Golds (as Littlehampton Town are known) Mitchell Hand and George Gaskin. Their team sit 17th, just one place and five points above Phoenix Sports in the final relegation spot. Two wins and a draw in their last three matches have helped and Littlehampton would have been looking to their top goal scorers, George Gaskin (10 goals)), Kieron Pamment (8 goals) and Jordan Layton (7 goals) to help them secure a win against an Eastbourne Town side who had very little to play for, given they were almost mathematically safe, coming into the match.

Eastbourne Town would have come into today’s match happy with their first season in the Isthmian League South East Division, since being promoted from the Southern Combination Football League in 2023-24. Manager Jude Macdonald’s side have benefited from a core of “James-related” goal scoring from James Ding (14 goals), James Hull (10 goals) and James Waters (8 goals).

The game opened with heavy pressure from Littlehampton Town and with the referee seemingly intervening very little, which allowed some quite heavy challenges. Eastbourne Town came back into the game as the half progressed, with James Ding posing a threat.

The deadlock was broken in the 34th minute when Josh Short found space in the opposition area to put the Golds 1-0 ahead to trigger a loud celebration from the noisy home support.

At the half time break it was 1-0 to Littlehampton Town, with the game still within reach of both sides.

Eastbourne Town looked more organised in the second half and on 66 minutes had a chance narrowly headed wide from v CB lose range.

Then in the 83rd minute Littlehampton went close themselves when a Josh Short effort struck the Eastbourne Town crossbar.

Littlehampton survived two last ditch Eastbourne Town chances in added time, but held on, to secure the points that almost guaranteed survival in front of 252 fans.