By Scott McCarthy

The 2025-26 Isthmian League season sees Hassocks playing at the highest level in the club’s history. It is a far cry from when it all began. Which thanks to a little research, we now know was on Saturday 11th October 1902.

Or at least that is when the Robins took to the field for their first ever competitive match. It was a Mid Sussex Junior League fixture at home against Plumpton Athletic.

According to the match report from the Mid Sussex Times, it was a well-contested game with Plumpton f inding Hassocks to be similarly tough opponents as the Burgess Hill Town Reserves side they played in their previous match.

The Robins ran out 2-1 winners thanks to goals from Rogers and Mayhead. Hassocks even had the good grace to score for their visitors, D Trill putting though his own net to enter the history books as the club’s first ever own goal scorer. Or as the report referred to it, an ‘accidental goal’.

Fast forward almost 123 years to the day and on Tuesday 7th October 2025, Hassocks were hosting Brighton & Hove Albion under floodlights watched by over 1,000 people in the Sussex Senior Cup.

The mind boggles over what Rogers, Mayhead, D Trill and their teammates from the Edwardian Era would make of it all?

Hassocks have come a long way since the days of parks football against fellow Sussex villages. And plans are afoot to keep the club progressing to provide a platform for becoming regulars at step four of the non league pyramid in the years to come.

A series of minor improvements are set to be announced soon for the facilities at the Hassocks Hotel Beacon Ground with the aim of increasing crowds and with it, revenue.

So if you have not popped down to a game this season, February is as good a time as any with three home games scheduled. Faversham Town are the visitors on Saturday 7th, Erith Town on Saturday 14th and Beckenham Town on Saturday 21st.

All three matches kick off at 3pm. And hopefully, without any ‘accidental goals’…