Worthing first played Tonbridge on 13th October 1951, when we were an amateur side playing in the Corinthian League and they were professionals playing in the Southern League. The match was an FA Cup 2nd qualifying match, played at our opponents’ former Angel Ground, and resulted in the second-heaviest defeat we have suffered in that competition, Tonbridge winning 11-1; Dave Linbery netted our consolation goal.

After that initial match, we met in the FA Cup, again at the Angel, in 1979, this time winning 3-2, a score replicated four years later in an FA Trophy tie played at Tonbridge’s current ground, Longmead Stadium. In 1997 we met in the FA Cup for a third time, again in Kent, when our opponents had officially adopted the “Angels” suffix to their name.

The result of the 1951 FA Cup match is, unsurprisingly, our largest margin of defeat in these encounters. Our largest winning margin is four goals, which we achieved on 22nd February 2005 by winning 4-0 at Woodside Road in an Isthmian League Premier Division match.

This was our first league meeting, and we met again two seasons later and from 2016 to 2019, each time in the Isthmian League’s Premier Division. In 2018, we faced each other in an Isthmian League Cup tie at home and prevailed in a penalty shoot-out where both sides seemed eager not to progress!

A home pre-season friendly was won in 2021, and this is the third season in which we have played each other in National League South.

The latest meeting between our two clubs came on 20th January this year, when Ollie Pearce scored the only goal in the National League South fixture played at Tonbridge.

A summary of our results against tomorrow’s opponents is shown below:

In the Isthmian League Cup match, we won the penalty shoot-out 3-2.