Red card almost costs Loxwood points in late show at Hailsham

Harry Bachelor’s 90th-minute winner saw the Magpies climb up to ninth in the Premier Division as they broke the hearts of basement boys Hailsham late on, pinching a 4-3 victory.

A thrilling match had seen Loxwood throw away a 2-0 lead to trail 3-2 early in the second half. The hosts then had Ross Markham sent off which led to Matt Daniel equalising on 73 minutes and despite Magpies’ Toby House seeing red for dissent, Bachelor’s last-gasp winner sealed all three points.

Loxwood boss Beard revealed he had been warning his side about their discipline in recent weeks and was not happy after another dismissal.

He said: “We made hard work of it after taking a 1-0 lead and then going 2-0 up from a penalty that probably wasn’t a penalty.

“We took our foot off the gas and stopped doing what we were doing well. We were trying to pass it all the time on a bad pitch and got ourselves into trouble.

“They had a player sent off and we got back into it and made it 3-3 and it was all us. I was not even worried at 3-2 with the way we were playing, but we had Toby House sent off for swearing at the linesman.

“I was fuming as we are on the thresh hold with dissent at the moment having had Charlie Pitcher and Mark Cave pick up a lot of cards.

“The next one was going to cost the club a lot of money and they would probably have to pay it, so after two weeks of telling them that, to have someone do it was disrespectful to me and the club.

“We did get what we deserved in the end, we just made really hard work of it. Fair play to Hailsham, they are bottom of the league, but never gave up and kept working hard.”

After just six minutes, Loxwood led as Eddie French’s stooping header from Byron Napper’s corner found the net.

In the 15th minute, despite no appeals, referee Jack Hobbs awarded a penalty after Ed Davies went down and House dispatched his 17th goal of the season. Hailsham pulled one back in the 23rd minute when Sam Conolly clinically tucked the ball away.

Just a minute into the second half, Hailsham’s Tom Johnston sent a lobbed 40-yard effort from the touchline over Dave Carruthers to level the scores. It got better for the hosts three minutes later when Markham found Conolly, who obliged to put the ball into the far corner.

Markham was then sent off for the host with 20 minutes left for a challenge on Lewis Scally and the visitors were level two minutes later as House squared for Daniel to finish from close range.

House was then shown a red card after he objected to decision not to award a penalty, but the Magpies pinched all three points as Bachelor notched.

Loxwood: Carruthers, Colbran, French, Scally (Jacques 74), Batchelor, Williams (Ramsey 57), Bachelor, Napper, Davies (Swaine 57), Daniel, House.