Littlehampton Town FA Vase semi-final: ticket sales are a Golds rush

Close to 1,000 tickets for their big FA Vase semi-final at home to Loughborough Students were sold within hours of going on sale - and more than 1,500 have now been shifted.

43 pictures from Littlehampton Town's memorable Vase win over North Shields.

The club have been given permission to allow a bumper 3,200 crowd into the Sportsfield for the big occasion and it does not look like they will have any trouble shifting the lot.

The first night of ticket sales was on Monday and the club said 945 were sold in two-and-a-half hours.

How the Marigolds got to the semi-finals by beating Vase favourites.

Golds’ run to the last four, which has even involved them being reinstated after losing to a side who fielded an ineligible player, has massively caught the imagination of the town and the wider Sussex football community – as well as their own faithful followers, of course.

Amid the excitement, the team have the smaller matter of their Southern Combination premier title bid to think about – as well as another semi-final, Tuesday night’s Peter Bentley Cup last-four tie against Wick at Arundel. Joint boss Mitch Hand said the staff and players were just trying to enjoy the ride and take things a step at a time.

He said: “Thankfully for me, on the pitch is all we have to worry about.

“A lot of work behind the scenes went into increasing the capacity – we’ve got the likes of Ady Baker and James Askew to thank for that, along with the other committee members.

“We’re blessed to have people who genuinely care for the club in charge and they’re doing everything possible to make these days as special as they can be.”

Hand, co-boss George Gaskin and the players are getting plenty of attention in the run-up to the Vase semi – more on that next week. But they’re stsying focused on their other bids for glory too. They’re a point behind Saltdean at top of the SCFL and won 4-0 at Little Common on Saturday.

Hand said: “We’re really happy with our last couple of performances. We went through a bit of a rough patch not long ago but I really feel like we’ve started to hit our stride now.

“It’s going to be tough with the games we have in a short period of time but we won’t let any game take priority over others. We’ve worked to hard to get into such a good position and we won’t take our eyes off the prize.”