The final West Sussex League positions are listed below

Premier Division

League Table

FULL TABLE DETAIL 

Lavant First Team suffered a very difficult season, as early on a number of results did not fall in our favour and over the first three months, only winning one game, drawing three and losing the remaining six games, of which four frustratingly we narrowly lost by just one goal.

So the team were firmly stuck in the lower half of the Premier league, facing a relegation fight, then just before Christmas team morale was hit, as our manager Steve Taylor-Horsley was about to tender his resignation due to personal family reasons. Steve however kindly carried on until the end of January after which James Callnon supported by Mark Gilligan took over the management of the team up until the end of the season.

Apart from the one game on the 18th December, which we forfeit the home game to Capel due Steve’s availability after suddenly losing his mum, the first team managed to complete all their remaining fixtures for the season.

Steve had managed the first team since the start of the 2018-19 season and at the end of December had completed 3 1/2 seasons as manager. In which time he had been one hundred percent committed to running the first team and being a key active member of the Lavant FC committee, which amongst other things we had to deal with the challenges of Covid over the two previous seasons.

The second half of the season saw a number of teams forfeiting match’s especially away fixtures, as teams struggled to field sides, partly due to the aftermath of coming out of the Covid Pandemic, plus due to rapid increases in inflation mainly due to the war in the Ukraine, seeing players having to work on a Saturday to make ends meet. Additionally with Capel running away with the league and inflicting heavy defeats on a number of team’s including Lavant. Teams just did not fancy travelling all the way to the Surrey based side, so forfeited their away fixture.

All of this did not work in Lavant’s favour and towards the end of the season they found themselves firmly routed on the bottom of the league. Subsequent league penalties to clubs forfeiting games still did not make a difference as it looked like our long stay in the Premier League looked to be over.

Division 2 South

League Table

FULL TABLE DETAIL 

Lavant Reserves in contrast to the First team had a fantastic season, winning the Division 2 South League title and additionally being awarded by the West Sussex League the Sportsmanship South Cup.

The strong performance of the Reserve side saw the Committee agree starting next season the two teams would switch.

Following Lavant reserves win over Ninfield in the Sussex Junior cup last Saturday, they now have  rearranged fixture for this Saturday so they can play Barnham Trojan Reserves away in the 4th round of the Sussex Junior Cup. 1.30pm KO.

The First team fixture remains unchanged as they are away to West Chiltington in the league.

Following the postponement of last Saturday’s Reserves game away to Ninfield in the Sussex Junior Cup, due to a waterlogged pitch, the fixture has been rearranged for this Saturday and as the match has been postponed twice to date, the fixture reverts to a home fixture for LFC.

Kick-Off therefore 1.30pm at Florence Rd, Chichester.

As a result of this change in fixture the first team game at home to Rudgwick will be rescheduled. So the first team are now without a game Saturday.

Sussex County Cups

Sussex Intermediate Cup
Lavant first team are at home to Barnham Trojans on the 13th November.  The winners will be away to Midhurst & Eastbourne Reserves on the the 11th December.

Sussex Junior Cup
Lavant Reserves are home to Ringmer AFC Reserves on the 6th November. The winners will  be away to either Ninfield or Horsham Trinity Reserves on the 4th December.

West Sussex League Cups

Cententary Cup
Lavant first team are at home to Henfield on the 6th November. The winners will be away to either Bosham Reserves or Horsham Crusaders. Date to be confirmed.

Malcolm Simmonds Cup
Lavant first team are away to Felpham Colts on the 2nd October. The winners will  be away to either The Unicorn or Cowfold. Date to be confirmed.

Chichester Charity Cup
Lavant Reserves are home to Watersfield on the 2nd October. The winners will  be away to either Optimus or TD Shipley Reserves. Date to be confirmed.

The West Sussex league have now issued the next two weeks of fixture and both Lavant sides have games each week.
See the Fixtures & Results page for the detail.

There remains problems with registering players on the FA Whole Game system. Plus there is a lack of Referee’s to cover the fixtures each week.  For the Reserves home game on Saturday against Del United we  have a referee, but for the First Team game away to Upper Beeding Reserves a referee is still to be appointed.  FA Respect Rules are even more important to adhere to this season as we cannot afford to lose any more refs.

This Saturday, 4th September the West Sussex League 2021-2022 Season gets underway.

Unfortunately not for Lavant FC.  So far the league have only issued the first weeks fixtures for September and the First team were without a fixture.  Then later in the week this was revised with a number of postponements and the Reserves home fixture was also cancelled.

Not quite sure what the problem is, but the league have had problems with player registration this season, plus there are a lack of referee’s available.  But hopefully next weekend both LFC sides can kick start their league campaigns.

In the meantime the Reserves have managed to get another pre-season friendly instead this weekend against Wittering Utd home at Florence Rd. 3.00pm KO.

The West Sussex league has let clubs know there is a real shortage of Referee’s for this season:

The situation with Referees is verging on desperate this season. As it stands at the moment only about half of the games will have an appointed Referee. Paul Barratt will obviously do all he can to find Referees but as you are all aware the responsibility for finding a Referee will fall back on the Home club. At all levels Clubs will need to find a ‘Referee’ sometimes at short notice. If there is sufficient interest and you can find Volunteers we are able to organise some training.

It will be difficult but hopefully things will improve.

So even more importantly this season is every club needs to operate the full FA Respect Code of Practice this season.

Lavant management team will working hard to ensure we work and keep to the code of practice.  We don’t want any more referee’s dropping out due to abuse during match’s.

Without a referee it makes it hard to play a game of football

This season is our main sponsors Bleach of Lavant Centenary Year and so they have sponsored a new all green home kit for this season to match the main livery colour of their haulage fleet and specifically the original all green livery colour adopted when the company was first founded 100 years ago.