Dockers delight: Newhaven beat Crowborough to lift Peter Bentley Cup

Standing in the way of making this happen was Crowborough Athletic.

Following two close league games – a draw at Crowborough and a narrow Newhaven victory at Fort Road – this was always going to be a close, hard-fought game.

Indeed, it’s fair to say the bumper bank holiday Monday crowd that packed out Hassocks’ Beacon Ground weren’t exactly witnesses to a classic.

A cagey opening half-an-hour saw very little goal-mouth action. Jack Meeres flashed an early header from a Lukas Franzen-Jones corner just wide – and that was about it.

It was stop-start as both sides struggled to get a foothold in the game.

This changed in the last 15 minutes of the half as Crowborough exerted the game’s first real spell of sustained pressure.

On 37 minutes, the Crows created the game’s first real opening, when Lucas Murrain burst through one-on-one, only to be denied by Jake Buss.

From the resulting corner, Newhaven could only half clear their lines and a speculative long-range effort from Ollie Hyland, Crowborough’s stand-out player, struck the crossbar with Buss beaten.

Crowborough sensed blood and pushed for a lead to take into half-time. However, despite a few more minutes of pressure, no more chances came.

The flow of the game didn’t dramatically improve in the second half, with neither side particularly looking like scoring. It wouldn’t be unjust to say that both team's goalkeepers will have endured far busier days.

The Dockers has to wait until the 69th minute before they created their first real chance since Meeres’ early header in the opening 10 minutes.

Franzen-Jones bundled his way through the Crowborough defence, appeared to be clipped multiple times, stayed on his feet, only to be denied by Crowborough’s goalkeeper, who injured himself in the process.

From the resulting corner, sensing the keeper was still struggling, Franzen-Jones curled the ball towards him, everyone missed it and the ball ended up in the back of the net. Advantage Dockers.

The goal settled Newhaven, while seemingly knocking Crowborough’s confidence. The Dockers began to pass the ball with more authority and from their next attack five minutes later, they doubled the lead.

Marcin Ruda and Franzen-Jones combined down the right, the ball was rolled back to Ian Robinson, his shot was scuffed into the path of Charlie Bennett, and the midfielder instinctively back-heeled the ball into the net. Cue pandemonium.

The Crows continued to attack and they did reduce the arrears deep into injury time when a deflected effort wrong-footed Buss.

This made the remaining 90 seconds or so nerve-wracking but ultimately Newhaven held strong to lift the cup for the second time.