Burgess Hill Town

Burgess Hill Town FC is a non league football club from the Sussex town of the same name, which is located around forty miles south of central London. The club were formed in 1882 as Burgess Hill FC, starting out competitive life in the Mid Sussex Football League. ‘The Hillians’ also won the Sussex Senior Cup three years in succession, for which they were awarded the cup to keep.

The club progressed to the Sussex County League for the 1958-59 season, but it wasn’t until a decade later, when they awarded the suffix ‘Town’ to their name did they really come to prominence. The club amalgamated with Worlds End FC and negotiated a move to a new ground at Leylands Park through the help of the local council.

The 1975-76 season saw Town crowned as Sussex League champions the year after being promoted in pole position. The next twenty years were unremarkable, but all that was to change under the managerial reigns of Alan Pook. He led the club to three further league titles in successive campaigns from 1997 to 1999.

Gary Croydon joined the club to take over as team manager, in which would be many spells, as Hill clinched further championships in 2001-02 and 2002-03, which led to promotion to the Southern League.

After just one season non league football was restructured, with Burgess Hill being placed in the Isthmian League. In 2007-08 the club were deducted eight points, with a penalty of three points coming from their tally in 2011-12 as Croydon set about trying to progress a move to a new ground near the Triangle Leisure Centre in his role as Chief Executive.

After many seasons playing in yellow and black, Hillians reverted to their old kit of green and black stripes for the 2012-13 campaign.

Burgess Hill Town FC will compete in the Isthmian League Division One South in the 2013-14 season.

My visit

Burgess Hill Town 2 Eastbourne Town 0 (Friday 23rd August 2013) Isthmian League Division One South (att: 303)

It was the first of my set of early shifts at work so I was more than happy to see The Hillians were at home so I could tick off another new venue. After doing plenty of admin work for my own club I was pushing it a bit fine to reach Victoria and buy my ticket on time. Why is it there's always a queue consisting of people who don't know what they're doing waiting to use the ticket machines when you're in a rush?

Anyway, I was on board just in time on a beautiful evening. Once I'd changed at Haywards Heath it was just a few minutes longer to my destination of Wivelsfield. Less then ten minutes later I was handing over £8 to get inside Leylands Park. I bought a decent enough programme for another £2 and entered the clubhouse. Kick off was at 7.30 as a long term dispute with neighbours meant that the floodlights had to be off by 9.30pm.

I was delighted to see a hand pump dispensing Horsham brewers WJ King's Summer Ale. I had a pint, and my conclusion was that it was the best advert for winter I'd ever tasted. Not my cup of Earl Grey. I even left some. However, I do recommend it as a dietary supplement for future users. 

I took my drink out onto new smart decking outside the clubhouse to take a proper look at the ground. There was a smart seated stand down the housing side. The changing rooms and clubhouse were behind the goal at the entrances end, with the rest of the ground consisting of flat open hard standing and grass. All paintwork was in the club colour of green, which helped it blend it in with the ample trees and hedges around the venue. I was slightly surprised that there was no area for covered standing. Perhaps this will be next on the list?

Once the teams had come out I had a little wander and patronised the new 'Back of the Net' refreshment hut. The cheeseburger with onions for £2.70 was well worth the money. I washed it down with a cup of tea as much to rinse away the taste of the beer. As I had missed tea I went overboard and also sampled a hot dog, but this wasn't up to my previous selection.  

The pitch was hard and already threadbare, which was a bit of a worry so early in the season. I'm not sure if this was totally responsible for the way both sides gave the ball away at will. It was frenetic, but poor fare.  Hillians took the lead through Max Miller after about fifteen minutes when he broke through and slotted past the Eastbourne custodian. 

That was about it really. Eastbourne, on the back of a midweek mauling, never really looked like scoring. I undertook my usual lap of the ground and was swamped with insects down the side by the dug outs. They were everywhere. I returned to the clubhouse at the interval to watch a bit of the once unlikely League fixture of Wolverhampton Wanderers v Crawley Town.

The second half was just as scrappy with tackles of varying standards breaking up play. The ref was decent, and although he cracked down on one piece of awful swearing at loud volume, there was still a bit too much for my liking - although admittedly not as much as at Littlehampton the previous weekend. 

The visiting keeper made one decent save in the second half but that was about all the goalmouth action on evidence. I missed the last few minutes to catch the 9.18 from Wivelsfield back to the metropolis.

In doing so I'm led to believe that I missed Hillians keeper Alan Mansfield making a fine save to keep his side ahead. From the resulting corner Eastbourne's number one went up trying to assist his team in grabbing a draw. However, the set piece was headed clear to Miller who struck the ball into the empty net from his own half.

I was home and in bed by 11pm after a good night out. The football was poor on the whole but I liked the set up at Burgess Hill, no doubt aided by the excellent attendance creating an atmosphere.