Eastbourne Borough pierce the gloom with bright display and first home point
That was more like it. After three successive defeats, Eastbourne Borough pierced the gloom with a gritty and gripping whole-team performance, in a 1-1 home draw with Slough Town.
Just a draw, yes, but in a sense it felt like a victory: the Sports shook off their doubts and silenced a few doubters, with 90 minutes of high energy and strong organisation. It really was several notches higher than those defeats against Hornchurch, Dover and Bath City.
Visitors Slough Town, fresh from an impressive 2-0 against Ebbsfleet on Saturday, played with physicality and discipline and they were worth their point. Indeed, for a brief spell after half-time, the Rebels were eyeing all three points after taking the lead with their best move of the match. But Matt Gray’s men kept their nerve, upped their own game and had much the better of the final phase.
At the very centre of Borough’s success was a young man who will surely play a huge part in the season ahead. Arthur Grout is only 17 – quite slight of build but fit, agile and alert. His touch on the ball is excellent and his tactical sense and eye for a pass are seriously impressive. Borough might just have the next Cole Palmer on their books.
Making the step up from last season’s Eastbourne United team, Arthur has trained through the summer with a Borough squad which has a pretty low average age, and he deserved the starting shirt. This game, though, was a whole-team performance: and Gray and Goodliffe were encouraged as well as a tiny bit relieved.
After disappointment in Bath, Gray changed a couple of personnel and subtly changed the shape. In those previous defeats, Borough had fallen only narrowly short, but now we are seeing cohesion, pattern and understanding.
The goals ought to follow – even if the ReachTV Stadium faithful did have to wait a full hour on Monday. The visiting Rebels had snatched a 53rd minute lead with their best attacking move of the game and Eastbourne responded with energy, and a hint of indignation, to equalise nine minutes later.
Slough almost grabbed a first-minute opener, and they would also strike the home bar later in the half. But Borough – closer to 4-3-3 than to their previous 4-4-2 – looked balanced and confident, with Tayt Trusty holding midfield and wide men Phuti and Uchegbulam eager to run at defenders.
Meanwhile striker Pemi Aderoju was in exuberant form. Three, possibly four, times in the first half-hour he was blatantly held by Slough’s giant centre-back Reiss Greenidge – all unpunished by referee Tolu Sangowawa, who finally awarded Borough a free-kick to ironic cheers. Slough’s Tyrique Clarke had copped an early yellow card for an awful foul on Trusty and recklessness was replaced by sanity.
The early minutes after half-time belonged to the visitors, and their goal on 53 minutes was a beauty: a burst of pace, a change of feet and a blistering shot by Jaiden Drakes-Thomas which gave Ryan Sandford no chance.
Borough collectively groaned. Not another Hornchurch, surely? Not another Dover? Those pale defeats – which had prompted every reaction from quiet disappointment to loud indignation from the Pink Army – were a fading memory as the Sports poured forward in pursuit of an equaliser.
And within ten minutes they were level. A long corner from the right was acrobatically hooked into the net by Aderoju and Borough finally had a launchpad for victory.
The last half-hour was a tide of Eastbourne attacks. A Grout shot was saved at the foot of the post the foot of the Rebels’ post, a Mo Sagaf free-kick from the edge of the box was tipped over at full stretch by Desbois, and then a Slough foul on the very edge of the area offered Borough a 90th-minute chance.
Sagaf lined up, stepped up – and skied the kick well over the crossbar. Progress for Gray’s new team is coming step by step – but Beckham-esque match-winners in stoppage time might take a little longer.