Bexhill United’s woes in the early stages of this season’s knockout competitions continued on Tuesday night when they crashed out of the Sussex Senior Cup 3-1 at local rivals Little Common.
A decent crowd had assembled under the lights at The Rec and things looked bright for Bexhill in the early exchanges as they were soon into the sharp, pacy passing game that has served them so well in their unbeaten start to their league campaign.
On 16 minutes a ball was cleared out to the Bexhill left and Ryan Moir swung a left boot at it and his sweet strike carved its way through the night air and into the top corner of Finn Holter’s net .
Moir almost repeated the feat ten minutes later when he pinged another shot off the right angle of the goal frame. Just after the half-hour, Jack Shonk found himself clear and had time to line up an effort which also smacked against the Little Common bar.
Bexhill would come to rue their bad luck with the woodwork, and their failure to extend the lead during their period of ascendancy, as the experienced, hard-working and well-organised Common outfit began to turn the tide.
Just before the break, Common drew level when Lewis Unwin found the net. As always, it was the perfect time to score and shifted the dynamics of the game. Common came out for the second half sensing their opportunity and worked hard to break down the forward supply lines that had served Bexhill well in the first half-hour.
Just a few minutes into the second period a free-kick was swung into the Bexhill box from the left, it was nodded down and Reuben Martin had all the time in the world to force it into the net.
With four wins on the bounce under their belt, the home team tightened their grip on the tie and with just the odd flash of attacking action from Bexhill they were able to see out the rest of the game in relative comfort and go into the hat for the next round.
