Ten wins can save Eastbourne Borough – but it’s a tall order

A crisis, or a challenge? Eastbourne Borough have just 18 games left, and they will probably need ten victories to secure their National South status.
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And to put the figures in context, Borough’s past 18 leagues fixtures have yielded just three wins. A notably improved performance last Saturday against St Albans City certainly raised the spirits, but no points, as the Saints poached a narrow 2-1 victory.

But the change of mood, if not of fortunes, under new manager Adam Murray was almost tangible. On New Year’s Day the Sports effectively hoisted the white flag against south coast rivals Worthing, losing 4-0 in a contest which was simply no contest. Within minutes of that final whistle, Mark Beard had relinquished charge of the side.

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Although Murray has claimed only one point from his first two games in charge, a reinforced squad has lifted the spirits. But the climb away from the cloying relegation quicksand needs to happen soon.

Borough celebrate their goal at home to St Albans last weekend - but the game ended in defeat | Picture: Lydia RedmanBorough celebrate their goal at home to St Albans last weekend - but the game ended in defeat | Picture: Lydia Redman
Borough celebrate their goal at home to St Albans last weekend - but the game ended in defeat | Picture: Lydia Redman

No National South club has played more matches than the Sports, but that simply means points waiting to be lost as well as gained. Among the seven or eight clubs huddled above Borough, and looking nervously over shoulders, resources will be stretched as fixtures pile high, and some huge midweek journeys are in prospect.

Every non-leaguer will feel for Dartford, who endured a fruitless 490-mile round trip to Truro on Tuesday night, to be thwarted by a frozen goalmouth! The Darts, who parted company this week with management duo Alan Dowson and Martin Tyler, should count themselves lucky: their Kent counterparts Dover Athletic also have a Tuesday night trek to Truro which will clock up a gruelling 570 miles!

Borough do face similar long-hauls, to Truro City, Bath City and Weston-super-Mare, but all are scheduled for Saturdays. And tomorrow (Sat Jan 20) brings just a short hop to Hampton and Richmond Borough. The Beavers have enjoyed a respectable season and have the play-offs in their sights – but Murray’s men will target this game as one of the nine or ten victories required for National South survival.

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If Murray is under the wrong sort of pressure, it certainly doesn’t show. Within minutes of a maddening home defeat to St Albans City, he was giving a very measured assessment to the media.

Borough and St Albans do battle | Picture: Nick RedmanBorough and St Albans do battle | Picture: Nick Redman
Borough and St Albans do battle | Picture: Nick Redman

“The level of performance was very good. Two moments of sloppiness cost us – St Albans’ only two moments in the game. But it’s cost us the result. We have to kill teams off, and we have to maintain the intensity for the ninety minutes,” he said.

Meanwhile, Borough fans and other local football followers really should be heading for the Lane on Sunday afternoon, when Billy Wood’s Borough Ladies welcome Eastbourne Town Ladies for a league fixture and local derby.

In a few short months, Wood has drastically overhauled the Sports squad – with drastic results. Five successive victories, including the toppling of league leaders Saltdean last week, have made Borough the team to beat. But Town Ladies have been scoring for fun all season – and sit just one point above Borough in the table. Spectators should note that the showdown at the Lane has an early kick-off at 1.30pm.

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Wood is well known to many people in local football – having grown up as a young player in those slightly unreal years of Stamco/Hastings Town/Hastings United, when two semi-professional clubs traded next to one another on Elphinstone Road – and successes and rivalries, and even owners, seemed to swap places annually.

Wood took the helm at Eastbourne United, hauling them back from the brink of relegation ‘with an 85th minute goal on the last afternoon of the season!’ – as he reminds me. He was then coaxed back for a spell as CEO of Hastings United, before moving to Priory Lane to join the Leslie journey.

He has completely overhauled Borough’s women’s team – more of that in a future piece here and in the Herald – and now also has the role of commercial manager. A full-time job, then, Billy? “You can safely say that! In fact since Christmas this is my 17th day at work without a single break!”

Wood is just one of a cohort who have spent the past six months turning Priory Lane inside out. Your Herald reporter had simply dropped in at the Lane, one lunchtime earlier this week – and within an hour or so I had caught up with at least half a dozen key personnel, from the CEO to the lady with plans for revitalising the Indoor Bowls Club. Simon’s People? Well, yes, although not all of them are new to Eastbourne Borough.

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CEO Alan Williams, freshly returned from a maddening spell off-duty with a painful back problem, is actually a man who rarely sits down for long. He is first and foremost the man who implements the Leslie Vision, day to day and step by step. The care and development of the stadium is the visible part of his role – often working closely with general manager John Bonar, who himself formerly took on chairman and CEO roles in the old regime. Hanker for the old days if you will, but there’s no denying that Priory Lane has never looked better and smarter.

A smart move, too, byLeslie to re-engage media man Anthony Scott who, together with Leslie’s own expert social media team, keeps the communications flowing more smoothly than before. Not to mention the intriguing, if still embryonic, TV documentary which in due course will be Leslie’s vehicle to bring Eastbourne to the world, and the world to Eastbourne.

And while Scott gets on with producing one of the best matchday programmes in non-league, I next bump into a Borough unsung hero.

Tim Brown – actually a bank manager in a former life – now spends his life working on the club’s community development and outreach, including visits and links with a dozen local schools. He is the inspiration behind Borough’s outstanding programme of disability sport, too. All respect to bank employees, but would you rather be tediously totting up tenners, or bringing joy to a ten-year-old frame footballer?

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On we go, and time to sit down with the man I came to meet: Mark Anderson (no relation), who is Borough’s Head of Recruitment and has been officially in post since January 1, although his dialogue with Leslie and Williams goes back further.

“My ultimate role is to work closely with the first team manager, but also to take a very close look at the youth system, right through. And putting a pathway in place from the youth system through to the first team, because that is one of the club’s most important recruitment tools – keeping good young players local, keeping them at the club and not losing them to other clubs.”

If he happened to drop a few names into the conversation from his CV, would we fall off our chairs? A chuckle. “Well yes, maybe. I’ve been 35 years in the industry, starting at Millwall, then got headhunted to Charlton Athletic, when they were promoted to the Premier League – and then headhunted again by Liverpool. Five years up there, and then brought down to work for the Albion, and finally up to Manchester United!

“I was at Old Trafford until round about the end of Covid, and I think maybe I’d lost the fire in the belly a little bit. My two best qualifications are my eyes and my ears – and you struggle a bit working from home and watching strings of video clips, or going through data, when in my job you really need to be out there on the touchlines! My best work is done at the side of the pitch!

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“I saw a lot of similarities with the way the Brighton project had worked, building from below up. So I did some research, and understanding Simon and Alan’s plans, I felt I could usefully share my knowledge and experience!”

Just another sleepy day at Priory Lane, then. Enough of the idle chat: there’s a posse of hungry first-teamers bundling in, and plates of steaming pasta to top up the carbs after training! Oh, and the indoor bowls? Check this website shortly, for some new projects in the bowls hall...