Momentum is with Eastbourne Borough – but can they maintain it at Hemel Hempstead?

What’s that swallows-and-summers proverb? The football parallel might be that one strike doesn’t make a season, but when Fin Ballard McBride powered through, on to David Sesay’s pass-of-the-season, and hit Eastbourne Borough’s winner against Boreham Wood, it did feel like a turning point.

Ballard McBride been a slightly forgotten man, making mainly only brief substitute appearances this season. But last Saturday he needed a few seconds, a fifty-metre run and a firework of a finish, to seal a terrific Borough victory.

Borough carve Wood open – the match in pictures by Lydia and Nick Redman.

And perhaps significantly, it was the first time this season that the Sports have come from behind to claim three points. More than once, they have salvaged a draw but not quite turned it into a win – but this was a victory of commitment, teamwork and mentality.

Sporting success so often starts in the mind, in the mentality, before it reaches the boot, the bat or the racquet. If the Borough players take this with them, a good season can become a great season.

Not, of course that Adam Murray will want his side to fall behind in the first place, when the head to Hertfordshire on Saturday to take on Hemel Hempstead Town.

The Tudors have been quite a surprise package this season under ebullient manager Bobby Wilkinson, who rescued them from relegation last April. But with a shorter injury list now and a renewed belief, Murray has options, and he will be planning for a victory rather than grinding out a draw.

Then on Tuesday, Borough will return to the ReachTV Stadium for a home game against Welling United. The Kent side had their wings clipped earlier this month at Park View Road, but they are never easy opponents.

And yes, Tuesday is Bonfire Night – and the National League has decreed a full programme of fixtures. It’s a slightly improbable project, when families will have other social plans. But club owner Simon Leslie and chief of staff Alan Williams have swerved this particular fizzing firework, and announced an admission price of a mere £5 for adults and a nominal £1 for the young sparks in your family.

Meanwhile the FA Trophy draw has turned up an absolute cracker: the Sports will travel on Saturday 16th November to Dorking Wanderers. Two serious contenders to blaze their way deep into a competition that brings useful prize money, gives momentum to a season, and ends at Wembley!