Eastbourne Borough’s new National South journey has smoothest of starts

A string of six unbeaten friendlies had laid the trail, and with the club’s profile currently higher than it has been for years, a bumper 1,950 crowd enjoyed a palpitating contest which was settled by a single goal – young Arsenal loanee Billy Vigar heading in from close range after a smartly-taken quick corner by Shiloh Remy and Jack Clarke.

The Beavers never lay down, though, and the Sports had to battle for every ball at a Priory Lane swept by wind and rain in between brilliant sunshine, and ending at the final whistle with a huge radiant rainbow arching over the timeless Pevensey Marshes beyond the stadium. A day to stay in the memory.

See 72 pictures from the victory – by Lydia and Nick Redman and Andy Pelling here.

Post-match, manager Mark Beard felt the victory was fully deserved – and maybe all the better for being hard-won.

“We played some unbelievable stuff, and we showed how good we are in our attacking. To have just the one goal lead did make it a bit hairy in the second half. Hampton are a really good side and we needed to show our defensive strength and our organisation.”

Manager Beard was not griping, though. “We could have been four-nil up at half-time. We had enough chances to kill them off – twelve shots on target! And I warned the boys – they will come at you in the second half. They tried hard to break us down, and had a number of set-pieces.

“Those are the key moments – when you’re one goal up, and eight minutes to play, and they are chucking everything at us! And that’s when it really counts, and the spirit and determination come into play. And though Hampton had height and physicality, we had players throwing their bodies on the line, and our keeper (Ben Dudzinski) is coming out like Superman and punching goal-kicks away.

The players worked their socks off, and they will have been absolutely shattered at the final whistle. But that’s the message that I’ve given them: if we come into the changing room crawling and on our knees, but we’ve got three points, then we’ve done the job!”

Beard is a planner and a pragmatist, and he now takes his newly-welded side on two successive road trips. Tomorrow (Saturday) Borough head to Farnborough, who surprised a few observers last season as newcomers to National South, and have strengthened further in the close season.

And on Monday night (14th) the Sports take a ride through the Dartford Tunnel to face Aveley FC, freshly promoted from the Isthmian Premier and looking, no doubt, to make a fortress of their ground, just a long throw-in from the M25.

Beard has no injury worries, and with 20 players burning for a starting place he will have planned carefully to pick two successive elevens who can do the job on the day. To return from their travels still unbeaten will be the minimum that Beard expects, and nine points out of nine would make a real statement to the whole National South division.

Joining that Simon Leslie journey on Saturday are the newly-revived Supporters Club, who have organised the first Borough supporters’ coach for about four seasons. As The Herald went to press, just a handful of seats remained. Join that journey…

One other change on Saturday which took spectators by surprise, and caught teams off-guard, came from the match officials. Just like his Premier League and Football League counterparts, referee Lewis Sandoe applied the new added-time protocols – and tacked on more than 12 extra minutes.

The measure is designed to discourage deliberate time-wasting, and is actually a welcome step – but those long-ago Saturdays when every match kicked off at 3.00pm, and every match ended at twenty to five, are now just a part of football history!