Hunt for goals is key as Eastbourne Borough try to end rut

A hurricane of change over the summer saw new owner Simon Leslie install a new management team and playing squad, with ambitious targets and bustling activity.

But this start was certainly not in the five-year plan. The Sports have just one win from six games – 1-0 against Hampton and Richmond on the opening day – and a fruitless Bank Holiday weekend took their run of defeats to four in a row.

“These next three games are massive,” Beard told reporters after the late-goal defeat at Chelmsford. “We know Weston are a really good passing team, then Havant next Wednesday is always a tough place to go, and the following Saturday is the long haul to Yeovil Town”.

In truth, every game is a challenge in a National South division which has yet to shake down into a clear pattern. And although the arithmetic starts to stack up, with the Sports six points off the play-off places and eleven points behind rampant leaders Worthing, Beard has to plan for the whole season ahead. The first horse over the first fence never wins the Grand National.

The frustration is understandable: Borough’s actual performances have been patchy, but actually quite promising. High tempo, creative movement, good individual skills. Not outplayed by any opponents – although arguably outmuscled in some phases, including at Farnborough and Aveley. But they are desperate for goals: two in the first two games, and not one in the run of four defeats.

After the home reverse to Truro City and the maddening late defeat at Chelmsford, Mark Beard said what everyone is thinking. “I sound like a broken record, but we have to take our chances. We could have been out there another week and still not scored. I need to go out and get another centre-forward, which I will do this week.”

Truro should have been defeated well before they stole the game on 76 minutes with a freakish Barnes-Wallis of a late goal, bouncing around the box before spinning into the net past Ben Dudzinski. And Chelmsford City snatched the points equally late in the day, with a controversial winner that should have been ruled out on two counts – an illegal throw-in and a crunching foul on key defender Brad Barry – before Jermaine Francis pounced on a teammate’s mis-hit shot to score.

Ahead of that, the Sports had thrown away three or four great chances to take the lead. But proven strikers are the hardest to find – and they command big wages. Wrexham have just won the National League with a striker reportedly earning over £200,000 a year. Owner Leslie will not need to stump up silly sums, but four-figure weekly wages are common in the National division which is his ambition.

And the Sports boss will need a player who fits the profile and the Borough system: his teams rely on movement and place-changing, and not on thumping the ball to a giant target man! The unfortunate loss of young striker Stefan Vukoje, whose ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury rules him out for the season, creates a vacancy in the squad – and it may well be filled before Weston arrive on Saturday.

The Somerset side are still riding high on those lungfuls of oxygen which come with promotion – but Beard’s Borough really do have the fitness, the style and the skills to blow away any opponent. If they can just put the ball in the net.