We’re proud of you, lads
Dominic Di Paola said his Horsham players were a credit to the club, the town and each other following their heartbreaking Isthmian Premier play-off semi-final shootout defeat at Chatham.
At the end of a fiercely contested match, Hornets captain Jack Brivio’s effort was the decisive miss as Jamie Yila slotted home the tenth penalty to give the Chats a 4-3 victory after it had ended 1-1 after120 minutes.
After a goalless 90 minutes,
Kareem Isiaka fired Chatham in front on 106 minutes – but Horsham struck back six minutes later through James Hammond.
The Hornets missed two of their five penalties, while the Chats were almost perfect from the spot.
It was not the end of the Hornets’ season. They went to the Amex Stadium last night for the Sussex Senior Cup final against Hastings, played after the County Times went to press – see sussexworld.co.uk/sport for a report.
Di Paola said of the play-off loss at Chatham: “We were the better team on the night. We created the better chances but we couldn’t quite get a goal - and you know what happens in football if you don’t score.
“We missed a couple of penalties in the shootout. We’re gutted, but I’m okay about it. We can’t ask for any more of the boys. They were brilliant on the night.
“We played some great football. We created some good chances, we hit the post, but we couldn’t get the ball over the goal line.
“It was the story of our season, which is what I said to the boys after the game. We’ve dominated lots of games this season.”
Jack Mazzone and Brivio were the unlucky men to miss for Horsham in the shootout and Di Paola admitted he couldn’t fault any of his players in the dramatic finale and paid tribute to ‘unbelievable’ captain Brivio for stepping up and showing his ‘character’ by volunteering to take a spot kick.
Di Paola revealed he was was effusive in his praise for his players in the dressing room after the game.
He added: “I just said that they’ve been a credit to the football club, a credit to the town, a credit to each other. They’ve reacted and responded brilliantly all season.
“I know we’ve gone on about it, and I don’t want to overegg it, but for them to just keep on playing games at that level for 61 games is amazing.”