It was a sobering Bank Holiday Monday morning for Bexhill as they travelled the short distance down the coast for a SCFL fixture against table-topping Eastbourne United. The Pirates left the Oval a couple of hours later having been well and truly battered 8-2 by the hosts.
Bexhill were without top-scorer Jack Shonk, who picked up a knock in the Friday night game against Roffey, and, with Luke Donaldson still ruled out, Jay Skinner-Swain drafted in Jack Samways to start up front.
If Bexhill thought they would get any time to settle down they were given an early wake-up call when Joe Overy opened the scoring for United with just one minute on the clock.
For a period the game opened up into a fairly even contest. On 13 minutes Ryan Moir rolled his defender and got a shot away but it skimmed just over the bar.
At the other end, James Hull was keeping Finn Holter and the Pirates defence busy but at this point it was a decent game of football and there was little warning of the deluge that was to come.
Games pivot on key moments and one came on the 27th minute. Richie Welch went up for a ball in the box and was cleaned out by Alieu Secka in the Eastbourne goal. The ref had no hesitation in pointing to the spot and after Welch received treatment, Secka was booked. Samways stepped up but blasted the spot-kick over the bar.
It was a huge relief to Eastbourne and minutes later they capitalised with Charlie Ball dancing into the box with ease and slotting the ball past Holter. Still Bexhill kept coming and on 39 minutes they at last got their reward through the lively Theo Coombs, who finished well after some neat approach play.
Any celebrations amongst the Pirates fans were cut short when just a minute later an own goal reinstated the home side’s two goal advantage and with that any chance of Bexhill getting anything out of the game vanished.
Eastbourne were shoving Bexhill deeper and deeper now and their fourth goal came with the last touch of the half, Callum Barlow running onto a through ball and sticking it home.
The second half started much the same as the first with Eastbourne scoring again within a minute, Barlow netting easily. Even at 5-1 down there was still some life left in Bexhill and on the hour Moir scored the goal of the game with a sweetly struck free-kick.
With Bexhill now pushing up in pursuit of a lost cause on 69 minutes Charlie Ball beat the high line and drove on to drive the ball past Holter. On 80 minutes Ball nailed his hat-trick and it fell to former Pirate James Stone to close the book at 8-2 just before the final whistle.
Bexhill now have a week to dust themselves down and both fans and management alike will be expecting a reaction when they head over to Midhurst and Easebourne next Saturday for a 3pm kick off.
