'˜Excellent facilities' at Lancing prove best of a bad situation

With their new home at Worthing Road approved by Horsham District Council last week, the future is looking bright once again for the Hornets.

But they are being forced to take another sabbatical from the town next season with their groundshare at Gorings Mead with Horsham YMCA ending at the conclusion of this campaign.

The club have opted to relocate to the Sussex FA headquarters in Culver Road - where Lancing also play - for what they hope is just a season until they can return to their newly-built ground.

The club spent one season at Worthing’s Woodside Road ground after leaving Queen Street in 2008 and Di Paola said: “Like I have said all along, it is the best of a bad situation. We do not want to be out of Horsham, we are Horsham.

“But given some of the other options, it’s a good situation for us. They have really good facilities and people want to play there.

“The 3G surface is excellent, the changing rooms are big, the clubhouse and ground are nice, it really is the best option for us.

“One concern is for players from London, it’s another 25 minutes on a journey, so from that perspective it’s a bit of a worry.

“But I guess that is the least of our concerns, we will need to put out a team next season to do what we want to do. The biggest thing is the ground going through and we can look ahead to that.”

Horsham already train at Lancing and they will make use of the state-of-the-art 3G surface on the coast next year ahead of having a similar two pitches at their future home.

But Di Paola added: “I do not think the 3G was a deciding factor, it’s just because that is what they have got. It was not really crucial, we were just trying to secure a nice facility.

“The Sussex FA were really keen to assist us to their credit. It will be interesting as historically the team has not done too well on 3G and that is something we need to change, for obvious reasons.”