Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City (2015)

Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City
FA Cup First Round
Sunday 8th November 2015

The programme.

Every year, the FA Cup is capable of throwing up ties featuring a team that very few people have ever heard of previously.

In 2015/16, arguably the team of choice for those football followers that choose not to look outside of the Premier/Football League were Whitehawk. A small, yet hugely ambitious, club who play on the outskirts of Brighton. Their opponents for the day were Lincoln City.

The Hawks are infamous in non-league circles for being the opposition when a crazy guy from Wealdstone made his equally infamous 'you've got no fans' comments. Only, I can assure you that Whitehawk DO have fans - noisy, irritating and probably the loudest I've ever heard which support a club that plies it's trade in the Conference South. More of that later...

After whizzing down to London in the early hours of the morning, thanks to National Express, I enjoyed breakfast at McDonalds in London Victoria before heading over to London Bridge and completing the second leg of my journey down to the south coast.

A station which looks much nicer than it did 10 years ago.

The game wasn't scheduled to kick-off until 2.00pm, which left me with some three hours to spend exploring Brighton. In the end, I couldn't resist an impromptu 20-minute trip to Lewes' Dripping Pan ground - a venue where I'd seen a really enjoyable game between the Rocks and Kettering Town, back in Lewes' only season in the top flight of non-league football in 2009.

The weather was dreary, depressing and dismal as you may expect for November, but thankfully the rain managed to hold off - at least when I was outdoors anyway.

Lewes' Dripping Pan - the best named ground in football?

After spending 20 minutes looking around the Dripping Pan, I quickly hot-footed it back into Brighton and caught a connecting bus from just outside the main railway station which took me more or less straight to Whitehawk's Enclosed Ground. Unlike Lewes, where I'd been before, once I stepped off the bus I had no idea where I was going. Neither did the dozen or so Lincoln fans who had also been on the same bus, but after asking a few locals, we collectively ventured down what resembled some obscure footpaths inside a public park - wondering what on earth we were walking into, before arriving outside the ground some 15 minutes later.

First impressions usually count for a lot and the Enclosed Ground didn't make a particular good one. It seemed to be a mess of temporary stands (using seats from the Withdean Stadium) that had been constructed in a hurry to keep up with the club's rapid rise through the non-league pyramid. The rest of the three-sided venue seemed unable to cope with the 1,000 strong crowd and already, a good hour before the game was due to get underway, terraced areas and seating sections were filling up quite quickly.

The Enclosed Ground left a few memories.

Having taken up a seat in the covered seating stand behind the goal, I was quickly joined by every weird and wacky local character. Whitehawk's fans are definitely something special (and worth experiencing at least once) and they created a non-stop racket - rattling just about every musical instrument you could imagine - from at least half-an-hour before kick-off. Characters amongst their motley crew included a guy sporting a Danger Mouse jumper, a couple of Hell's Angels and Boy George, and the noise they made was incredible.

The game itself was your typical cup tie featuring an underdog and the 'noisy' support paid dividends as Whitehawk quickly capitalised on some woeful defending by the visitors to race into a 2-0 lead inside half-an-hour with Danny Mills and Jake Robinson on the score-sheet. Lincoln, however, refused to give up the fight and Matt Rhead's well-placed penalty on the stroke of half-time halved their deficit.

Check out the slope on the pitch.

In the second half, the Imps upped the tempo and looked the more likely team to find the next goal, but on 58 minutes they paid for another defensive lapse in concentration as Sam Deering managed to get the better of Lincoln 'keeper Paul Farman to make it 3-1. However, that lead only lasted four minutes, as Matt Rhead took advantage of sloppy defensive play at the other end and emphatically blasted the ball into the net from a few yards out to reduce arrears for the second time.

With the higher division outfit once again threatening to turn the screw and find an equaliser, Whitehawk went and re-established a two-goal cushion through Dave Martin's strike, only for the big, burly handful known as Matt Rhead to complete his hat-trick and leave Lincoln trailing by just one goal, at 4-3, as the game entered injury-time. Incredibly, there was still time for one more goal, with Sam Deering effectively wrapping up a cup scalp for the Hawks with a strike from the penalty spot, just moments after Alan Power was red carded. Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City.

Getting ready to make a quick exit in stoppage-time.

All in all, it had been an enthralling cup tie and well worth the admission fee, lengthy travel and day out. If only ever random football match was as incident-packed as this one.

Arguably the finest cloud arrangement you may ever see.