Come On Lewes!!!

[Trigger]

Sussex football chiefs were today awaiting an official account of the pre-season friendly which flared into violence.

A contest between Oakwood and Lewes was called off on 75 minutes after fighting which allegedly involved players from both teams and some spectators.

Lewes claim their manager Steven King took the decision to call a halt on Saturday.

Referee Chris Pearce is filing a report to the FA and county chiefs will also expect to be informed.

Sussex FA chairman Ron Pavey said: "Chris Pearce will report this matter to us.

"Until we have the details we cannot comment further."

The report is likely to be studied by county officer manager Nigel Williams and disciplinary chairman Alan Knight.

 

[Seagulls over Lewes]

Taken from Lewes web site

News

19th July - The Rooks' first pre-season friendly at Oakwood ended in controversy this afternoon, with the game being abandoned half way through the third of the three 30 minute periods after a second mass brawl in quick succession.

The home side were clearly hyped up from the outset and their tackles were at best overenthusiastic and at worst cynical in the first ten minutes. The referee quickly lost control and some may feel that he should have acted more decisively when Rooks trialist Mark Hammond caught an Oakwood attacker with an elbow, although it did seem that the response was somewhat exaggerated.

With the hapless official clearly unable to realise that some cards or at least a chat with the two managers was required to calm things down, the game continued to be punctuated with a series of bad challenges, nearly all of them emanating from the home side. In some respects it was almost surprising that trouble did not erupt until the last twenty minutes, but when Dwayne Clark was tripped as he tried to get back on his feet, all hell broke loose, and one Oakwood supporter decided to throw a few punches for good measure. When Hammond was targeted for what one assumes was a bit of retribution halfway through the third period, the skirmishes started again, and that was that.

So did anything positive come out of the afternoon? Well there were so many trialists on show that it was difficult to keep up, but certainly defender James Hall and midfielder Junior Adeniyi (brother of Peter) looked promising, and Tom Graves also did well in the half hour he spent on the pitch. It was great to see Paul Stokes in the thick of things after nearly 19 months on the sidelines, and indeed it was his pass which created the best opportunity of the afternoon, but Lee Newman's effort was well saved. New signings Clark and Junior Kadi looked very impressive, and the latter's free kick created the only other Lewes chance of the afternoon, but Marc Cable's downward header lacked power.

Plenty of work still remains in terms of getting back behind the ball when the attacks break down, but overall this paled into insignificance when you consider the game's abrupt ending. And we didn't even play on their first team pitch as it 'wasn't ready'. All in all pretty much a wasted afternoon - at least next Sunday's game will be a bit more'friendly'.......