Hailsham Town are a club with a long and proud tradition, stretching back to 1885, but rarely has there been success outside of Sussex.
Aside from a single Sussex Senior Cup Final place in 1902, success has been at a premium. In its 146-year-history the club has five league titles, including a Southern Combination, two East Sussex Leagues and a Southern Counties Combination. Its success on a relative level; you don’t expect to see future game greats on the pitch at The Beaconsfield.
However, in November 2016, they finally got the draw they wanted; Brighton and Hove Albion in the Sussex Senior Cup. You must consider the usual opponents are the likes of Burgess Hill, Whitehawk and Eastbourne Borough; big teams for the non-league scene, but nothing quite on the level of Brighton. Just 22 miles separate Brighton and Hailsham, but it may as well be a million miles in footballing terms.
Brighton are now a Premier League team, and recently beat West Brom in the FA Cup third round, as reported by the BBC. Going into that game they were ninth in the table, and that’s a position they could well improve upon in the coming weeks; they’re one of the few clubs not badly affected by the African Cup of Nations, according to a Bwin Sports piece on the subject. Who knows, they might even secure European football for the first time ever. It might seem a long way away from the Hailsham Town pitch, but in 2016 they visited and brought their own slice of European culture with them.
2016/17 was the season the Seagulls won promotion to the Premier League, and in November, they visited The Beaconsfield for a Sussex Senior Cup tie. The game drew a crowd of almost 600, much bigger than usual. It was a huge night for Hailsham, which put money in the coffers and a few future stars on the pitch. As for the European flavour, that was brought by a youngster called Luis Garcia, who had previously been with Barcelona. His career has since stumbled, and he’s now over in the US, but he was a pretty big deal at the time.
Other notable players on the Brighton team included Ben Barclay, Joe Ward and Max Sanders. Barclay began his career with Manchester City, joining Brighton as a youth. He was tipped for big things, and after the Hailsham game, he went on to play for Accrington and Notts County before moving to Stockport County.
Joe Ward was on the cusp of breaking through at Brighton, and he is another who has gone on to bigger and better things. After playing against Hailsham, he joined Lincoln City on loan, appearing in the FA Cup quarter-final against Arsenal. That secured him a move to Peterborough United, where he has 19 Championship appearances this season.
There’s another Lincoln City connection from that night: Max Sanders. He appeared for Brighton in midfield and scored one against Hailsham. He seemed on course to break into the Brighton first team last season but was surprisingly sold to Lincoln in January 2021. He’s currently trying to break into their side in League One.
How did Hailsham deal with this array of future footballers? Very well, considering. Brighton were reduced to ten men early on after James Tilley was sent off. Tilley now plays for Crawley Town, so he may well find himself lining up against Hailsham in Sussex Senior Cup in the future. Sheldon Levett, the Hailsham keeper, managed to save a penalty in the first half too, but the Stringers went in 1-0 down at the break, courtesy of Tom Cadman’s goal. Max Sanders added a second before current Sutton Utd striker David Ajiboye finished the scoring.
It was a big evening in the recent history of Hailsham Town and one that people at the club would love to see come around again one day.
