Gray hoping Eastbourne Borough can come through early-season storms

“After working down here for a little while now, I’m realising that the conditions always play a part at Priory Lane! We had a strong wind out there, and also the rain hammering down for a spell in the first half.

“Our players have to learn quickly, how to contend with weather conditions like that, and they worked it out, and they coped admirably. In fact my team were really enthusiastic and eager to get into the game."

It has been a learning curve, and a pretty steep one, for Gray’s staff and his freshly assembled playing squad. The next FA Cup tie is a further week away – more of that in a moment – but can the Sports take the momentum from the victory over Epsom and Ewell, and channel it into the National South campaign?

“Well, it started last week, with a good clean sheet against Hemel Hempstead Town, but in that game we didn’t take our chances. In the Cup win, we did take our chances. And that simply gives everyone that lift, and that confidence.

“We also have the benefit of two midweeks – this week and next week – without a Tuesday night game. So we get valuable time on the training pitch. This is still a very new squad, new to each other and to the methods of myself and Jason (coach Jason Goodliffe).

“It’s well documented that I am still trying to bring one or two new faces in, and we are closing in on that. But this is now two clean sheets in a row, in the hat for the FA Cup, another home game this Saturday – that’s a nice list of positives!”

You have to feel for Gray: landing like a parachutist in, if not a foreign field, certainly in terrain where he had to swiftly dust himself down, get his bearings and plot his next course.

No two managers are alike, and Matt doesn’t especially do grand gestures and loud boasts. But chat to him, and you find a grounded, modest guy who is in this business for his club, his players, and not for any glory of his own.

And now, in the coming weeks, his players must do the business for him.

Tomorrow (Saturday) sees the ReachTV Stadium host Salisbury FC – also winless in the league and just a point above the Sports in the National South table. Ironically, the Whites also knocked in four FA Cup goals last Saturday against the poetically named Laverstock and Ford FC – of the Wessex League.

We would not dream of fetching out a cliché like “relegation six-pointer” – but let us just agree that both a victory and its three points would be seized upon greedily.

Meanwhile, this week’s draw for the FA Cup third qualifying round has produced an interesting match-up for Borough, who travel on Saturday week (September 27) to Sholing FC in Southampton.

Sholing are riding high in the Southern League Premier South, just one step below Eastbourne. And the Hampshire club’s joint manager is Paul Doswell – who was Matt Gray’s immediate predecessor at Sutton United, and a well-known figure in non-League. “Dos” left the South Londoners for the South Coast – where he actually lives – and spent two seasons at Havant and Waterlooville before taking a new challenge at Sholing.

The Boatmen – a nickname reflecting the club’s historic links with the ship-building industry – have quite a reputation for enlisting celebrity support, and Matt Le Tissier is among several major names in the club’s hierarchy. A grand day lies ahead out for the Pink Army – but first, there is the little matter of Salisbury, and a victory which would lift them off the bottom of the table.