Alone, on top of the world, looking down on creation
Sometimes you just have to head for the hills, even if it's the counterintuitive thing to do. It's off to the foot of the South Downs for Worthing United vs Storrington.
“At least”, I ponder to myself as I close the front door and lock it at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, “it’s a fairly convenient journey”. As an inveterate overthinker, I’ve been pondering my match choices on a Saturday afternoon fairly closely of late, and on this particular weekend I’m rather questioning my own sanity.
This season hasn’t felt like last season. This time last year my world was a simple if mindlessly boring place. This very weekend last year was Easter weekend, and I was on my way to Leatherhead in Surrey with something approaching a spring in my step. It would be an adventure if nothing else, a day out in the sunshine in my own company.
But this time this year, things feel different. This afternoon’s trip is to Worthing United, and for all the ‘keeping it local’ vibe that I try to give off, the grim fact is that I can’t afford anything more than this. Work has been falling through the gaps between my floorboards, and I’m quietly panicking. So we make do and mend. We put the horrors to one side.
Worthing United are the town’s other club, and practically no attention will be paid to them locally this afternoon. A couple of miles from here, Big Worthing are still chasing the National League South title and they’re at home this afternoon. There’ll be a four-figure crowd there this afternoon, and it’s doubtful that there’ll be a three-figure one at my match.
And I have to admit that there are few reasons for the non-committed to be heading in the direction of the town’s other team today. Not only is context important, here; it’s also a matter of convenience. Woodside Road, where I could otherwise be headed, is well-positioned between Worthing and West Worthing stations, a ten-minute walk from either and barely a mile from the town centre.
But that’s not something that can be said for Lyon’s Farm, the home of Worthing United. Their ground is a not-unreasonable half-hour walk from my house, but the bus from here to there is only hourly and you have to cross the fearsomely busy Old Shoreham Road to get there. It’s situated in a mildly inconvenient part of town, tucked behind Sainsbury’s and a retail park.
Visiting here is always an emotional experience. Later this year it’ll be the tenth anniversary of the Shoreham Air Show Crash, when a negligent pilot crashed a plane onto a nearby motorway, killing 11 people. Among that eleven were Matthew Grimstone and Jacob Schilt, two Worthing United players on their way to a match that afternoon.
Their passing brought an outpouring of local grief, and the reminders of what happened on that terrible Saturday afternoon are still front and centre at the club’s little ground overlooking the town. The main stand carries their name. Two sky blue and white ribbons are at the top of the players entrance to the pitch. They are remembered.
And for all that the location of this ground is a little inconvenient to actually get to, it also offers some of the most spectacular football views in the country. It’s sandwiched between Worthing and the South Downs, meaning that the hills provide a spectacular backdrop, and the elevated height at which we’re watching also offers a bit of a rooftop view of the town itself. You can’t quite see the sea, even if you squint, but there’s not that much in it.
On the pitch, United aren’t having that bad a season. At kick-off, they’re fifth in the table. The league title is already well beyond their reach, but the playoffs certainly aren’t. With one of the four clubs above them ineligible for promotion, sixth will be good enough for the chance of a place in the Southern Combination Football League Premier Division, but there are four teams all tied on points, so they do need to keep winning.
If there is a big difference between this place on this afternoon and what's going on a couple of miles up the road, it’s ambition. Worthing FC are redeveloping their ground for higher divisions than the National League South. They’ve built a big swanky terrace that runs one side of the pitch, while the tin covers and park benches that gave the old place its idiosyncrasy have gone forever.
But Lyon’s Farm hasn’t changed that much in the last decade. Entrance is to be found through an open gate with a man at a clipboard standing at it. The bar is strangely half-hidden and you have to go up another flight of steps to get to pitch-side. Like most grounds at this level, facilities are basic. There’s one small seated stand and… that’s about it. Opposite is a grass bank that can be clambered up if you’re feeling adventurous. One end is closed off altogether.
The crowd is sparse, and seems to be mostly made up of people who know the players to some extent or another. There are a couple of sky blue and white striped scarves floating about, but you get the distinct feeling that most of those here today are cheering for the players rather than the team.
There’s a small clutch of supporters who’ve made a trip from one side of the Downs to the other; Storrington sits on just the other side of them to here, near Horsham. They’ve not had that much to cheer about this season. Their team is just above the relegation places but in no danger of going down themselves, and they’ve only won three of the 14 league games they’ve played so far in 2025.
When United take an early lead through an own goal, it looks as though they’re in for another long afternoon, but then something unexpected happens. Storrington dig their heels in and start playing, pushing their opponents back. They win a penalty kick for a pretty clear handball and draw themselves level, and they take the lead ten minutes later when the United goalkeeper only half clears and the ball is looped back over him and in. Storrington lead 2-1 by half-time.
I retire to the bar at half-time. I’d tried to five minutes earlier, only to find there was no-one there. They’re having problems with their contactless machine, which is causing furrowed brows, but I have the requisite number of pound coins for a pint, so I’m unaffected. As things turn out, entrance, food and a pint cost a grand total of £18. It’s somewhat of a disappointment to find that the programme is a QR code, when last year’s was such a treasure trove of weirdness.
When I re-emerge for the second half… it’s cold. This is supposed to be a warm spring afternoon, but a cold wind is blowing from one end of the pitch to the other and I regret my decision to wear a lighter jacket than my winter coat. We’re high up, here. I can see the disorientingly-shaped block of flats on the seafront in the distance and it looks as though we’re at about the same altitude as the top of that.
Ten minutes into the second half United are level again, and it’s an absolute beauty of a goal. There doesn’t seem to be much danger as Danny Kingston runs down the right-hand channel towards the Storrington penalty area, but his turn inside catches his trailing defender off-guard, and he pings a curling shot across goal and into the top corner.
Storrington are wobbling, but it takes another moment of excellence–and from the same player–to decide the game. Just over midway through the half, Worthing win a free-kick on the right-hand side of the penalty area. Kingston steps up and his shot curls round the wall and beyond the grasp of the goalkeeper–who does, I have to admit, bear a resemblance to Peter Drury which I find a tiny bit unsettling–give them the lead.
The final twenty minutes of the match play out in an increasingly scrappy manner. Worthing United have the win, and results elsewhere have gone their way. At kick-off, four teams were tied for those two remaining places, but United are the only to have won, with two of the other four losing and one picking up a draw. They now have a three-point buffer from falling out of those places, though two of those just behind them do still have games in hand.
Big Worthing won and stay top of the National League South. That’s the big local sports headline for the weekend, and there’s nothing that Worthing United can do about living in that sort of shadow. It’s not the only shadow they live under, of course. That tenth anniversary will start looming larger and larger in everybody’s minds as it approaches, a reminder that there are more important things in life than football.
And perhaps that’s the tribute, or at least the one that really matters. A decade on, with crowds still largely below a hundred–although it is worth mentioning that they have more or less doubled over the last five years or so–Worthing United are still going, still plugging away in the SCFL. Still giving those who brave this elevated altitude throughout the colder months something to turn out for as winter finally starts to defrost into spring is a valid reason to exist in itself.
This is a football club that feels like a family, one brought together by unspeakable horror, which holds itself together with through that shared memory. Love is always the stronger emotion, so long as we allow it to be, and that’s a good enough reason to keep that flame alight. All this club needs is to keep playing. But if they can sneak their way to promotion come the end of this season it would be… beneficial to them. Whether they’ll be able to or not this season, however, still feels like something of a game of two halves, just as this particular one did.
