[Football] The Non-League Football Thread- 2024/25 Edition

[Commander]

Went to Haywards Heath last night. Comfortable 3-1 victory against Crawley Down who were in 3rd place and had scored 23 goals in 8 games.

Heath look a very good side this year, and have conceded only 3 goals in 9 games. And their MOM looked about 12.

 

[stewart12]

Ground number 46 was "The Oaks" home of AFC Uckfield Town for their SCFL Division 1 clash with East Preston.

A long old drive for me. I'd never been to Uckfield before and to be honest, I still haven't- this ground is in the middle of nowhere and quite far from the hustle and bustle of downtown Uckfield. There doesn't seem to be much around it other than an Indian restaurant which looks closed and something that looks like a caravan park. Very odd place for a ground

However it is a bit of a stunner, like Roffey and Loxwood it's surrounded by tall trees on all sides, making it feel like you're in some sort of Bavarian forest. It's very basic, with just two stands which are identical to each other and side by side (maybe just have 1 long stand?!). They've both got a few rows of seats and a standing area behind. Otherwise there's hard standing on 3 sides of the ground with most of the crowd congregating on the side that has the two stands

Clubhouse wise they appear to have had a bit of a refurb and it's pretty decent for this level. It's quite big with plenty of seating, decent beer selection and even homemade pastries. I can see from social media that the refurb has been recent so it's not quite "bedded in" yet, but they've still got some stuff on the walls. There's also a patio area outside. This element of the ground is up there with the better SCFL grounds to be honest

There's a tea bar in the corner of the ground which satisfied my Bovril needs. Uckfield join Midhurst, Hailsham and Rustington in the "Bovril in a mug hall of fame". It was £1.50 and they even got some pepper for me from the clubhouse. Very friendly staff here in general

The visitors dominated the first half and were two up by half time- could have been more. I remember from last season that EP have a lot of very skillful players but their end product and general teamwork is quite poor, but I guess every now and again it all clicks like it did tonight. They then went 3-0 up and it was only then that the home side got their act together. They did get a goal back but we're unable to do much else and EP won 3-1 in the end

It seems from a lot of the stuff that the club put out that they struggle to get crowds because of where the ground is and find it hard to get people from Uckfield to really get involved in it which is a shame