Hinshelwood leaves Worthing with a heavy heart

He has taken up the full-time assistant manager role with Brighton & Hove Albion’s under-18 team and said it was something he could not turn down.

The 31-year-old was in charge at Woodside Road for a year-and-a-half and Rebels finished sixth in Ryman League South Division last season, despite having their playing budget cut completely in January.

Hinshelwood said: “It all came out of the blue, really. I’d got back from doing my UEFA A licence last Tuesday and then I got a call on the Thursday, when I was off down the park with my kids.

“The under-18 assistant manager role was something I couldn’t turn down – the opportunity to work at a professional club full-time and with the calibre of players that are at the club.

“It was a no brainer, really, although it was a tough decision to leave Worthing as I can only see good things happening there.

“I was really excited about the future there and the potential with what is happening.

“I was really happy at Worthing and couldn’t see myself leaving. There weren’t too many jobs I would have left Worthing to go to. Another job at a Ryman League club wouldn’t have appealed to me. But this is a full-time position at a professional club and there are enough people out there looking for full-time work in football.”

Hinshelwood had been busy building a squad for next season at Rebels and had signed six of the club’s promising young players on contract for next season.

Gary Elphick, who was going to join Rebels as a player, and Jon Meeney have been named Rebels’ joint managers and Hinshelwood said: “I leave Worthing with a heavy heart and their result will be the first one I’ll look out for.

“They’ve got a good nucleus of players and the players they’ve got on contract are some of the best in the Ryman League and non-league football.

“It’s a really exciting job and I’m sure that Gary and Jon can do well.

“I’m meeting Gary this week to give him my advice and tell him about the things I had pencilled in.

“It’s not a case of me washing my hands with Worthing, nothing could be further from the truth. Anything I can do to help them, I’m more than willing to do and I’ll try to get there to watch them as much as I can.

“My family and myself were made to feel so welcome there and we all loved our time at the club.”

Hinshelwood retired from playing professionally aged 26 after a career at Brighton & Hove Albion, Aldershot and Wycombe and he said: “I had a close bond with the fans at Brighton and they shared my frustration with all my injuries.

“Whenever the fans saw me pull on a shirt, they saw a fully-committed player and now I’ll be doing all I can to bring on the young players and help them progress to make appearances for the first team.

“This is a great opportunity for me and is a new challenge and a new focus.

“Since I retired, I’d been doing every job under the sun to pay the bills and feed my big family, like any father would do.

“This job was something I couldn’t turn down and I’m looking forward to getting started.”

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!