Haywards Heath Town welcome Brighton & Hove Albion to the HS Energy Stadium for what promises to be a special night for the club. Ahead of the game, First Team Manager Kevin Green spoke about the size of the occasion, the challenge his side will face, the importance of the supporters and why his players will be approaching the night with belief.
Kev, first of all, how much are you looking forward to this one? Brighton & Hove Albion coming to Haywards Heath makes it a pretty special night for the football club, doesn’t it?
Absolutely. It’s a big night for the club. To have Brighton come and play at the HS Energy Stadium is great for everybody involved and for the town itself.
We’ve been saying for a while that we were due a big home cup tie. We’ve been drawn away a lot recently in cup competitions, so to finally get one at home, and one of this magnitude, is pretty special for the club.
From a footballing point of view, how big a challenge is it going up against Brighton? And what can a night like this do for the club beyond the 90 minutes?
From a footballing point of view, you always want to test yourselves against the best.
Brighton are going to be coming here with full-time professional players. They’re training every day, looking after themselves and preparing properly for the game, whereas our guys have got to go to work and deal with everything that comes with that before they can even start thinking about their football. So we know it’s a big ask. But beyond the 90 minutes, hopefully we get a big crowd. We generally get good attendances for the level anyway, but if we can attract even more people for this game and they enjoy the football we play, the ground, the facilities and the atmosphere, hopefully they’ll come back and watch us in more league and cup games.
You’ve made a positive start to the season and have only been beaten once so far. How pleased have you been with the performances?
The performances have been good, although we’ve been hindered a little by having quite a lot of injuries. The one defeat we did have was away at Uxbridge in the FA Cup, who are two divisions above us, and we only had 11 fit first-team players on the day. We came away a little frustrated because we felt that if we’d had a little bit more experience to come from the bench, then potentially we might have been able to do something.
Credit has to go to the Under-18s and Under-23s who stepped up and came on. A couple of them made their senior debuts, which was a fantastic occasion for them and brilliant for their development. Their time will come, but realistically they’re still developing and that was a very high level to be thrown into.
For an hour that day I thought we were very, very good.
There have also been a few performances this season where, if I’m being ultra-critical, we haven’t quite hit the levels we want to hit, but we’ve still managed to get results. That’s a sign of a good team.
What sort of challenge are you expecting from Brighton, and will your message to the players change because of the opposition?
We’re expecting a really good side. We expect them to be tactically very good and physically very good. But our message is always to go out, be brave on the ball and show what Haywards Heath are about, so that won’t change. We’ll be tactically ready and our preparation will be the same as it always is. There are also players who have played for me before who have been involved in games where we’ve managed to beat Brighton in the Senior Cup, so there’s no reason why we can’t go and do it again.
Does having those previous experiences against Brighton help going into a night like this?
Absolutely.
Everybody who has been around football long enough has witnessed some kind of giant killing.
This is our opportunity to go out and make a name for ourselves tonight.
How important can the supporters be?
Our supporters are really good. They travel in numbers, they’re loud and they get behind the team. We’re lucky to have them. If we’re going to continue growing the club, we need to grow the number of supporters as well, and it would be fantastic if people come tonight, enjoy the atmosphere and then come back in the future.
From the team’s point of view, it gives you another level knowing that you’ve got the backing of everybody connected to the club.
For the players, is the message to enjoy the occasion, or once the whistle goes does it become about winning the game?
Of course we want them to enjoy the occasion, but we also want them completely focused on trying to win the game. We’re not the type of people who are going to say we’re just here to make up the numbers. We’re here to compete and give as good a performance as we possibly can, and then we’ll see where that takes us.
If we’re good enough on the night to get the win, then so be it. But the important thing for us is making sure the performance is right because that gives us the best opportunity of success and the best opportunity of winning the game.
Finally, what would your message be to people in Haywards Heath and the surrounding area who are thinking about coming down tonight?
It’s going to be a brilliant night and, hopefully, a brilliant atmosphere. We want it to be an occasion that people are still talking about for a long time. It would be fantastic to have local people and local residents there and part of the night. Hopefully they like what they see and want to come back a little more often. For Brighton supporters in the local area, with the international break on, it’s also a great opportunity to come down and potentially see some of their future stars.
We’re really happy to be hosting Brighton and we hope as many people as possible come down to the HS Energy Stadium and enjoy the game.