The gales were blowing on Sunday and there was plenty of Thunder activity at Essex University when Sussex's own gridiron team demolished the Essex Blades 48-0 in an off-season friendly.

The result did little for the confidence of the Blades who meet surrey stingers next.   But for Thunder it was a tremendous result and paid back in full the handfull of guys who kept the Thunder dream alive following the loss of their home ground just before the start of the 2001 season.

Gary Whitfield, Tony Miller, Dave Murray, Karl Filmer Sankey and James Ayrey gathered together a few hopefuls at the end of last year and it grew from there.  But this new-look Sussex Thunder surpassed the hopes of them all with a tremendous team effort marking their return to competitive play.

The defense was awesome as they denied the Essex Offense any first Downs on the day and scored a Safety as the D chased the Blades' punter through the back of his endzone.

The offense was also in great form and with the weather affecting the passing game it was the ground attack that did most of the damage, although Serge Abdelkader caught a two-point conversion.

Karl Filmer-Sankey had a brace of touchdowns as the ground attack rolled forward relelntlessly.