Reality Check at Woodside Road
Dugout News
National League
Worthing 1–2 Forest Green Rovers — the Rebels’ first home league defeat in more than ten months, and the clearest sign yet of the world promotion has taken them into.
Worthing’s first National League home game ended with a first home league defeat in more than ten months — and a few hard truths about life at Step 1.
It began perfectly. Just two minutes into the afternoon at Woodside Road, Jenks put the Rebels ahead and the ground believed. But Robbie Savage’s Forest Green Rovers, relegated from the EFL not so long ago and built for this division, worked their way back into the contest and completed the turnaround to win 2–1.
Adam Hinshelwood did not hide afterwards, describing the afternoon as a “reality check”. He is right — and it is worth being precise about what that means. Promotion has carried Worthing into a different world, where the opposition are full-time, the punishments for mistakes are immediate and a two-minute lead guarantees nothing.
One defeat changes nothing about the scale of what this club has achieved. Woodside Road had not seen Worthing lose a home league game since last autumn; the club has climbed to the fifth tier of English football for the first time in its history. What Saturday confirmed is only that staying there will demand everything the climb did, and more.
The Rebels go again — and Dugout News will be there when they do.
First published in Dugout News, Issue 002, Sunday 16 August 2026. Republished here in full.
