So the history of Eastbourne Borough Football Club was further enriched over the past week end with the antics at Chester.

There was a lot of things rumoured about the up and coming fixture including the fact that all the major bookies had ceased taking bets on the game.

I can’t ever recall that happening with a game The Sports were due to feature in! It all stemmed from the fact that no one knew just what strength team Chester would be naming and after the incident at Weymouth last season, no self respecting turf accountant would risk such losses again. Rumour has it that more than £31,000 had been placed on Boro winning!

Well, in short, the home team was pretty much full strength and it was the stewards that were sadly weakened in number. So short in fact that tales were relayed to me that only two sides of the ground were open for business. I say relayed, as for the first time this season I missed a Boro match due to other work commitments,. In short, ones that paid! My afternoon was spent in the driving rain of Stratford -upon-Avon and listening online to SCR. Texts were also ringing around me as update after update drifted across the ether.

It was a surprise then to hear that the game was abandoned after a second pitch invasion by home protesters intent on bringing the plight of their club to the national stage. The rights and wrongs of this action can be discussed until the moon falls out the sky but I guess to some extent we got out of jail with the referee making his decision with help from the local constabulary. Who can tell if we would have pulled it back again and salvaged some points? The dark side of it means a midweek venture to the North West in future weeks.

The fact that this protest took place at all is in a way a testament once again to the way that Sir Len of the Lane and his trusty Knights of the Priory Lane round table (Not sure whether Knight is the right phrase for Lorna, but do you have Knightesses?). Joking apart, it does put into perspective how the fortunes of a club rely on the organisational skills and prudent housekeeping. Thankfully in Eastbourne we have a team that not only sails a steady ship but always seems to be able to draw on more volunteers as is warranted. Makes every one of proud of our club.

In form Hayes and Yeading were the next test and on a cold Tuesday we set off for the outskirts of Heathrow. I must confess that I felt hurt by the greeting Ii got when I pulled into the car park at The Lane. Chris greeted me with the comment, "I thought we asked for a decent driver" and even Sir Len thrust his sword in when he looked at me and simple muttered, "Oh, it's you". One can only imagine they feared more off roading on the A27. The jouney passed without incident!

H and Y were one of the form teams in BSP with five wins on the trot behind them and with Boro struggling to get that elusive win the scene could have been set for yet another hard 90 minutes at the office. It became apparent after only a few minutes of the first half, that if H and Y were a form team, then the rest of us must be really bad! We took the game to them and made a mockery of the so called form book.

When JT pulled the trigger after a deft through ball from Joe Benjamin and the onion bag rippled, the faithful travelling contingent erupted and ran to the pitch side hoardings, clamouring to congratulate the goalscoring hero. Cue one yellow card from a referee that was to feature heavily later that night. Now I know that rules are rules and without them where would we be? (No, I am not going down the Al Murray route, well, okay, the answer is France!) but to book a player celebrating a goal at this level hardly warranted that treatment. After seeing Matt Smart get booked last season for the same thing, maybe us fans should refrain from the exuberant hugging!

We sat back a bit in the second period, and to be honest we did have a couple of good chances to double the advantage but as the 90-minute mark approached we all seemed to be bearing witness to our first victory in 14 league games. Well, cue a certain S Basham, a player with a name so apt it was almost scripted. Basham by name and nature! Just ask Gary Elphick, who having been thrown to the ground in a World Wrestling Federation style, was deemed have had the cheek to handle the ball mid fall and the man in black, along with his inept colleague with a flag but with eyesight sadly lacking a 20/20 rating, only saw a size 5 ball hit Mr Elphick, and not the rather larger frame of a player in a red shirt also hitting Gary.

Injustice is one way of putting it and due to the family nature of this online writing, it’s probably best I leave it at that. Did we defend so badly to allow a late goal deny us yet again? Quite simply, no! Nobody can legislate for such an abysmal display from an official, who up to that point had actually performed well.

Saturday brings Cambridge United to the South Coast and it could just be one of those games that we turn on the style and we put in a performance that belies our league position. We did it last season when high flying Torquay arrived, so why can't we do it again? Answers on a post card to……