First Sussex Senior Cup final in 18 years will cap ‘amazing season’ for Horsham FC

The Hornets booked their place in the showpiece final, which will be held at Brighton & Hove Albion’s Amex Stadium later in the season, courtesy of a 4-1 win over ten-man Steyning Town at Lancing FC’s Culver Road on Tuesday evening.

Harry Shooman fired the Barrowman in front on 10 minutes - but the game swung in Horsham’s favour when Lucas Rodrigues levelled on 34 minutes and then Steyning’s Nathan Cooper was shown a red card four minutes later.

Shamir Fenelon put the Hornets ahead on 42 minutes, before second half goals from Fenelon and Jack Mazzone wrapped up an emphatic win.

Horsham will meet either Isthmian Premier rivals Hastings United or Isthmian South East outfit Littlehampton Town in the final.

Di Paola said: “It was a tricky game. We weren’t at our best, but we were missing loads of players. Our back four was all over the place.

“We had two wingers at full-back, two centre midfielders in the backline, so it was a cobbled together team, which is concerning because it’s not getting any better in terms of numbers.

“They scored early, we lost our captain Brivs [Jack Brivio] to injury, so you’re thinking the worst. They started really well and we were really poor. We just took a bit of time to get going.

“I’ve not been involved in many semi-finals where we’ve done well in terms of performance, so it’s always a bit all over the place - but you just want to get through. That’s all that really matters, which is obviously what we did.

“We can draw a line under it and move on with our season and have something to look forward to at the end of it.

“Whatever happens now, we’ve had an amazing season. [We’ve reached the] second round of the FA Cup, the last 32 of the FA Trophy, the Sussex Senior Cup final, pushing for play-offs, it’s just been an incredible season.”

Saturday saw rivals Lewes put an end to Horsham’s eight-game unbeaten run in the Isthmian Premier with a 3-1 win at the Camping World Community Stadium.

Ayo Olukoga’s deflected effort put the Rooks ahead on 19 minutes but Daniel Ajakaiye equalised just nine minutes later on his first Hornets start of 2024.

Chris Whelpdale restored Lewes’ lead on 38 minutes before Archie Tamplin secured all three points – and Sussex bragging rights – with two minutes to go.

The result leaves Horsham two points adrift of the play-offs in sixth, albeit with games in hand on the sides above them.

Di Paola said: “On another day it’s a draw. One of them [the goals] was a deflection, the other we gave the ball away in a poor area, and for the third we gave the ball away in another poor area.

“If we go in [at half-time] and it’s 1-1 it’s a different game but we’ve given away that soft goal. Brivs and Lew Carey got into a bit of a muddle.

“I’m thinking in my head in the second half, if we score and go 2-2 we can park the bus – but we committed too many players forward and we got done on the break.

“You have to look at it sometimes and say, we’ve been on an eight-game unbeaten run. All runs come to an end at some stage, the key is to set and go again. We’re not going to win every game until the end of the season, we know that.

“Unless you’re someone like Hornchurch who are far better than anyone else, if you go toe-to-toe with teams you’re going to lose some of them, and that’s kind of the situation. We need to reset, refresh and go again and try and go on another run, if possible.”

This week sees the Hornets travel to fourth-from-bottom Margate on Saturday before entertaining basement club Kingstonian on Tuesday evening.

And Di Paola admitted Horsham had ‘major problems’ going into the club’s latest batch of league fixtures.

He said: “The boys looked jaded [against Steyning]. We’re looking at trying to freshen things up a bit, but they’ve just got to keep plugging away and knock the games off. Sooner or later, we’ll be sitting having barbecues in the sun and the season will be over.

“We looked like a tired team against Steyning. Cookie [Charlie Hester-Cook] was ill, and Sham has just had a baby. He’s got worse bags under his eyes than mine, which is unusual for any player!

“Barks [Danny Barker] is struggling a bit with his groin, we had no Harvey [Sparks], no Bobby [Price], no Jack Strange. Dan [Ajakaiye] has just come back from injury, and we’ve rinsed him this week because we’ve needed him, so we need some freshness amongst the group before the next batch of games really.

“We’ve got major problems. I’ve got to try and address it. We’ve got problems all over the pitch.

“Brivs will definitely be out [through injury]. He’s done his hamstring so you’re talking a few weeks [out].

“We’ve got to hope Strangey comes through and we can get one or two others back on the pitch, and then we’ll be okay.

“I’m trying to wrack my brains on what we can do numbers wise, but that’s a challenge on two levels - one is budget, the other is there aren’t players available at this stage of the season that you’d want to bring in.

“I don’t really like signing players anyway. I like to work with what we’ve got but sometimes needs must. We might have to bring one or two in, but I’ve got nothing in the pipeline. I need to have a little think this week."