Eastbourne Borough 4 Dulwich Hamlet 3, FA Cup Third Qualifying Round, 6th
October 2018
It may only be the first Saturday of October, but it’s
already the fifth weekend of FA Cup action this season (including the extra preliminary
and preliminary round).
Having managed to attend a match at a different ground in
Sussex in each of the previous four rounds, it has become my intention to keep
this run going for as long as possible (not including Crawley and Brighton when
the league clubs enter the competition in November and January respectively).
With Eastbourne Borough and Horsham being the only Sussex
representatives drawn at home in the Third Qualifying Round, my decision became
a straight toss-up between the two. Ultimately, I plumped for Borough, simply
due to time constraints this Saturday making a jaunt eastward along the coast
slightly easier for me.
This meant for the first time this season I would be
visiting a ground belonging to a team in the heady heights of the National
League South. What’s more, Borough’s opponents were league rivals Dulwich
Hamlet. Two National League South teams! I know, I’ve gone big time!
Now, in the interests of honesty, I have visited Borough’s
Priory Lane ground on a handful of occasions previously. The first time I went
there was around 20 years ago, when Borough were still known as Langley Sports,
while my recent visit occurred roughly 15 years ago, when The Sports (as the
current incarnation of the club are also known) were plying their trade in the
Southern League.
It’s fair to say that the place has changed drastically over
the years, reflecting Borough’s standing as Sussex’s highest-ranked non-league
club. A position it’s held for a few years now.
With covered areas along each side of the pitch, including a
decent-sized main seated stand, there’s thankfully plenty of space to shelter
from the swirling wind and rain which hit Sussex in the early afternoon. The
clubhouse is certainly much bigger than I remember it being, and there are a
number of snack bars handily located around the ground for those who choose not
to brave the queues at the bar. There’s also a nifty electronic scoreboard of
which my five-year-old son would have been most impressed. The main change since
my previous visit, though, is arguably the playing surface, with a top-of-the-range
3G pitch now taking pride of place.
The entrance fee (£13) is the joint most I’ve paid to get
into a ground this season – although as it’s also home to the highest-ranked side
I’ve seen this is no real surprise. The program (£2.50) is yet another
fantastic example of the great value for money that some of these publications
offer nonleague match-day fans. Forty-eight pages, full colour and packed full
of information, it’s another great effort.
Having literally arrived at Priory Lane right on kick-off time,
due to some heavier than expected traffic in and around Eastbourne, and then a lack
of parking spaces in the surrounding roads, I’ve barely taken my place on the
terraces (under cover, of course) before the home-side take the lead through a
first-time strike from Alfie Rutherford.
Another couple of chances for the hosts go abegging, and
there’s even time for a disallowed Sergio Torres effort, before The Sports double
their lead with just a quarter of an hour played. It’s the goal of the game,
too, as Ryan Hall blasts an unstoppable, swerving strike past the helpless
Hamlet keeper from around 25 yards.
By this point, the Hamlet fans, of which there were
surprisingly many, could already be heard to be muttering about fearing the
worst. I don’t have any official data for this, and I certainly haven’t been counting
(I’m not that sad… yet), but I would say Dulwich brought a greater number of
visiting fans than any other away side I’ve seen this season. That being said,
I did read somewhere (it may have been in Nige Tassell’s brilliant book The Bottom Corner: A Season with the Dreamers
of Non-League Football) that Dulwich’s distinctive navy and pink stripped
scarf has become something of a fashion statement in the trendier circles. So
maybe Eastbourne is just home to far more hipsters than I’ve ever given it credit
for.
Either way, their fears were quickly realised when Borough
were awarded a penalty on the half-hour mark. At first, the home side may have
been worried that the ref had blown for the decision slightly early, as
Eastbourne actually had the ball in the net seconds after the whistle had
blown. Yet Dean Cox ensured no damage was done, confidently sending the keeper
the wrong way from 12 yards (see video).
There’s an old saying that things will get worse before they
get better. This was certainly true for the visitors as they found themselves
down to ten men after 40 minutes. I’ll be generous and say that a wild two-footed
tackle on Cox by Iffy Allen was simply mistimed rather than a deliberate
attempt to get himself out of the nightmare match he and his teammates were
enduring, but either way a more stonewall red card you will rarely see.
Although bafflingly I did hear a couple of Hamlet fans moaning about the
decision – tribal loyalties blind us all at times, I suppose.
A thoroughly miserable half for Hamlet was then completed
minutes later, when Hall made space for himself in the area and calmly finished
past the hapless visiting keeper for his second of the game.
At half-time, the Dulwich manager was no doubt just urging
his players to avoid a complete and utter spanking, while the Borough manager was
almost certainly asking for more of the same. Personally, I was worried that I
would find anything particularly positive to say about Dulwich, aside from the
fact their kit is brilliant. We definitely need more pink and navy combinations
in the game!
However, with the fans of +both teams almost certain the
game was already over (one Dulwich fan quipped during the interval that only
rain could save them now – damn that 3G surface!) it seemed the Borough players
believed it too.
There was a distinct lack of urgency from Eastbourne’s
players in the second-half, with all of them playing at half the level they
were in the first half, evidently thinking they’d already done enough.
In fairness, they were comfortable for most of the second
half, with Dulwich hardly busting a gut themselves to get back in it.
Even when Dipo Akinyemi pulled one back with little over ten
minutes remaining, even the most optimistic visiting fan can surely have viewed
it as little more than a consolation.
That tiny seed of belief started to grow just four minutes
later, when Nyren Clunis raced clear of the defence and finished confidently to
reduce the deficit to two. 4-2, and now the Hamlet fans were in full voice for
the first time in the afternoon, while Borough fans were far more nervous than
they had ever expected to be.
Much to practically everyone’s disbelief that nervousness
turned to full-blown anxiety just a minute later. Almost a carbon copy of the
second goal, only with Kingsley Eshun running through to finish on this
occasion. The home players looked utterly shellshocked. The home supporters
looked utterly s**t scared.
Fortunately for Eastbourne, and unfortunately for Dulwich,
there was to be no dramatic equaliser, and after three nervous minutes of
stoppage time Borough progressed to the fourth and final qualifying round.
Albeit far more uncomfortably than they could ever have imagined being the case 45 minutes
earlier.
As to my FA Cup progression, well that’s a different story.
At the time of writing, only Eastbourne and Worthing are definitely through to the
next round (and if you’ve been paying attention to this blog you’ll realise
that I’ve been to both grounds already this season). Lewes, Whitehawk
(staggeringly so) and Hastings all crashed out in the third round, while
Horsham have a replay and Lancing (who earnt an FA Cup reprieve a couple of
weeks ago) are a round behind.
My fingers are tightly crossed that my Sussex FA Cup run
doesn’t end here, but if it does, then in the immortal words of Vinnie Jones at
the end of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, it’s been emotional.
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