Eastbourne battle Sussex rivals for place in the Conference

Just when either Eastbourne Borough or Lewes seem to have taken a decisive grip on the Blue Square South title race, the club in pole position have relaxed their grip and their rival has caught up and passed them again.

In the past fortnight, a draw and two defeats amid a spate of injuries left Lewes powerless to prevent Borough marching clear. Yet now Borough are showing vulnerability. They were beaten 2-1 at home by Bromley on Saturday and yesterday completed an unhappy Easter when they went down 1-0 away to Welling United. Lewes might have leapfrogged them again if their match at home to Fisher Athletic had not fallen victim to a downpour at the Dripping Pan because they won 3-0 away to Sutton United on Saturday. Borough’s lead stands at one point, but Lewes have a match in hand. It is a Sussex battle royal.

Garry Wilson, the Eastbourne manager, said:  “We expected to win a minimum of four points out of six and went into the weekend with a realistic chance of winning both games, so to come out with no points, at this stage of the season, the position we’re in, is a huge disappointment – and we’ve just had a discussion about it in the dressing-room.”

The Glaswegian said that the season as a whole had far exceeded his expectations. “We weren’t setting the target of winning the league this season but once you get up there and start faltering, it becomes a major disappointment,” he said. “We’ve scored a lot of goals this year, we’ve been buoyant, our movement has been good, we’ve been sharp, but in the last two games we’ve looked as if we’ve lost a little bit of energy. Whether that’s too many games at one time or that players are carrying knocks at this stage of the season, which is something that take a little bit out of your game, I don’t know.”

On balance, Wilson regards the rivalry with Lewes as a good thing – not least in the shape of a crowd of  3,027 that were drawn to Priory Lane on January 1. “It’s made it a little bit more difficult but we’ve pushed each other along,” he said. “Hopefully, what’s happened this weekend will spur us on and we can turn the tide again. Our target was the play-offs but we’ve had a sniff of the championship and we want to go on and win it, but performances like the last two won’t get us there.”

The very prospect of  following former rivals like Histon and Salisbury City to the Conference may, Wilson said, also be having its effect. “That might be something that gets to the players,” he said. “A lot of people put it in their minds that we might be playing Wrexham next year, Mansfield, Notts County – whoever comes down out of the League – and teams with the history of Exeter and York.”

Len Smith, 62, the chairman since the club moved from being a youth club team to becoming a senior side under the banner of Langney Sports has no doubt the club will cope with the Blue Square Premier. “I’ve been chairman since we were literally a pub side,” he said “In ten years we’ve moved from the lowest level of senior football, the Sussex County League, to the verge of the Conference, the top of non-League football. It’s exciting but we didn’t make long-term plans to reach that top level. We’ve gone along to enjoy our football and it’s just happened. We’ve obviously prepared for the next step but it’s not something we set out to do. When we were in the County League, we didn’t even know what league was above us. Our geographical position is our main problem but we’ve made big leaps before - from the County League to the Southern League - and coped with it, so I’m sure we will do again.”

The club secret lies in its home-spun stability.  “Over 20 years, we’ve had only three managers,” Smith said. “Pete Cherry was there at the start for a long time, then Steve Richardson for a short while and Garry has been here now for almost ten years. It helps stability, but it helps that you have a good manager – you don’t get rid of them, you keep them.”  Wilson agrees. “We’ve got a fantastic management team, we all work off each other but the team off the pitch, the supporters – there’s a special bond,” he said. “We’ve been together for a long time. The faces that I saw when I walked in the door nine years ago are still around. That does not happen too often at clubs. Even some of the players are still there: Darren Baker, Matt Crabb, Lee Hook, Ben Austin, Matt Smart – they’ve got between 250 and 500 appearances.”

Borough remain a committee-run club. “We’re self-sufficient,” Smith said. “We don’t have people pouring in lots of money. We have to pay our way. We’ve got a commercial manager who is our only full-time employee. Lorna Gosling came to us from Oxford and has been very successful. It’s not a poor area but they’re not a lot of big companies there and we must be one of the few towns in the country that have three senior teams.”

Then there is Lewes, just up the road. “We get on all right, although we obviously like to beat them on the pitch,” Smith said. “Off the pitch, we work together. In fact, we use one of their director’s company to do work on our pitch – so we don’t mind financing Lewes’s playing staff.”

WALTER GAMMIE