History

Founded on 13th March 2017 by Neil Sutcliffe & Tony Cook, the two men had recently been involved with club AFC Hollington before deciding to break away and form their own team.

The club was built on the philosophy whereby talent alone was not enough but the right kind of temperament was required for anyone to be part of either the squad or staff set up.

This led to the club motto “Circumda tibi bona reliqui facile” which in latin effectively means “Surround yourself with good people, the rest is easy”.

And so it proved as in their first ever season The Chopbacks (a nickname given after the famous Hastings Smugglers of the 1760’s) managed to finish 3rd in what would prove to be a promotion place in the East Sussex Football League Division 4 and get to its first cup final or what should have been before they were removed from the competition due to a league rule breach of not having 4 of its players play in enough league or cup games before the semi final match.

The second season saw the team push on in the 3rd division by again claiming promotion finishing 2nd whilst also getting to and winning its first cup final in the Wisden Sports Junior Challenge Cup 3-1 against Victoria Baptists bringing in the clubs first piece of silverware in only its second season of existence.

During the summer of 2019, Neil Sutcliffe took the decision to not only step down as First Team Manager but also to walk away from the club altogether leaving Tony Cook to step up into the Chairman’s role for the foreseeable future.

Sam Cook now heads the coaching team as he looks to take the team to the next level in 2019/20 season as they look for a third successive promotion and more silverware.