Brighton suffered their first defeat of the season when they went down 4-2 to a strong Holcombe side in the Kent/Sussex Regional League.

Despite the defeat, Brighton skipper Carlo Missirian was upbeat.

Missirian blamed "one of those days" as his side lost key defenders Luke Shirley and Richard Baker to injury, had two goals disallowed, struck a post and had little joy with several short corner shouts.

Paul Watson put Brighton ahead but Holcombe levelled . Brighton missed a number of chances and then had a ten minute spell when they conceded six short corners, three of which were repeated and two were converted to see the visitors trail 3-1.

Holcombe scored a fourth but Brighton rallied as Mohamed Samak made it 4-2 .

Missirian said: "We wanted to get seven points out of the first nine. We have got six and are still only three points off the top and only a point behind Holcombe. We have just got to get back to winning ways this week."

Mid Sussex gained their first point of the season as they drew 2-2 at Ashford.

Phil Middleton gave Mids an early lead but they then conceded two goals to trail 2-1 at half time. Man-of-the-match Mike Jourdain grabbed the equaliser.

Crawley were made to pay for missed chances as they lost 3-0 to Horsham.

Coach Terry Higgs missed three early openings and Horsham hit back to lead 2-0 at the break through two Richard Lowe goals, one from a penalty flick and one following a short corner. Ian Brown's goal wrapped it up.

Horsham skipper Mark Ansell said: "We are pleased with that. We would have liked to have scored more goals but Crawley defended well."

Worthing skipper Simon Holloway grabbed an equaliser ten minutes from time to earn his side a 1-1 draw away to Old Williamsonians.

The point was secured when David Edmondson pulled the ball back to Holloway to fire home.

Holloway said: "We could have won but they had a lot of chances as well. I would rather have a point than no points at all."

In Kent/Sussex Division One, Eastbourne fought back from 2-0 down inside ten minutes to run out 5-3 winners against Sussex rivals Middleton & Bognor.

On target for Eastbourne were Dave Morgan (two), Chris Burden (two) and Ben Coupe while Neil Pacey, Alex Hilditch and Damian Oakley were the marksmen for M&B.

Eastbourne skipper Tony Hayes said: "It was a hard working performance to come back from 2-0 down. It would have been easy to crumble."

Crowborough lost 6-0 at home to Maidstone.