Eastbourne football clubs, and one other.

 There’s a hierarchy of Eastbourne football clubs. It goes something like this:

 

1. Eastbourne United Association FC.
2. The other Eastbourne club in the town centre and which is handy for the pub and the second-hand bookshop.
3. The other other Eastbourne club, which isn’t even in Eastbourne.

 

Eastbourne United have, in addition to the merits of being easy to park at and being very friendly generally, have been playing host to Bexhill’s own “other team”, who represent an unimportant and easily-disregarded wilderness of old people’s homes, a roundabout, and a rather good cheese shop. These exiles have been scuffing up Eastbourne’s pitch for several seasons, hopefully in exchange for a monetary consideration, but will soon be returning home to said wilderness, having built a stand for people to be in. I haven’t been up to have a look so I don’t know whether said stand faces towards or away from the pitch.

 

 

We look forward to our visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Printed Football Programme

 I am the programme editor at a Step 5 club, or, as the commentators like to say, the 9th tier of English football. We produce a printed programme: our print run was about 30 at the start of the season, but as we're having a successful one the print run has crept up to 45 and we're still selling out.

Why do we do it? It would be so much easier and cheaper to just have an online offering, and if we did I'd be able to do some really cool things with layout, content and interactivity, as well as have more relaxed deadlines. It's tempting.

This is my routine for a Saturday game: using the last programme as a template I do us a cover. It might be a player portrait, an action shot taken by one of the many talented local photographers who are happy to give their stuff for free. There's the stats stuff, which I try to leave as late as I can, a bunch of local paper and social media snippets, and the regular manager and chairman columns. It takes an amazing amount of time considering how much is pure boilerplate. Visiting clubs often send you a bunch of history filler that you struggle to edit down, and you're tempted to insert lies just to check who's reading this stuff; "in the 1921-22 season we were relegated to the South Brighton League, which was odd because we're from Yorkshire". They are also liable, in lieu of anything resembling a team sheet, to send you a list of all 40 of their registered players, implicitly inviting you to "pick the bones out of that lot".

I print at home. The printer belongs to the club, and I can claim back from the chairman for consumables (I hope!). I have to be conscious that the more big fields of colour (dark winter skies!) I print, the more expensive it all gets. It's nice to have a higher grade of paper for the cover, but that costs more. I acquired a ream of green A4 from a contact who probably nicked it from work and that gives a nice look to the fixtures/ results/ tables pages, but if I had paid for it that's another cost. To save money we have bought cheaper print cartridges, which would be great if you didn't have to take them out every 10 pages to wipe off excess ink from the nozzles. This whole thing's probably using up a whole working day of my time. I just finished folding and stapling for tonight's game and I'm going crosseyed. This, after all, is time I could have been spending on the sofa watching Diana Rigg in The Avengers.

So why do it? Because people like printed programmes. Older supporters like them because they're "not very good with computers" - non-league football attracts quite a few older supporters who once maybe travelled to watch West Ham or whoever, but who can't manage it these days. Groundhoppers like them: it's a kind of certificate of attendance. Ordinary people like them: it's something to hold in their hand. Recently, helping out on gate duty I was really gratified at the number of people buying programmes, and by the number of people, especially visiting supporters, telling me how much they appreciate them. 

If we sell 45 programmes at a pound each, well I'm no good at maths but I can do THAT... deduct the costs above, and we're maybe making a few bob. If some kind soul sponsors the programme, why thank you, and of course we have a few advertisers, but they're mostly doing it because they're someone's mate or out of pity, and thank you to them too. Not to blow my own trumpet, but if the club has a retired person who can prioritise its interests over Mrs Peel on BritBox then a printed programme sort-of works. 

A football post

A brief return to Blogger to put in a little article which was intended for the Bexhill United programme of which I am the editor these days - 20 pages of footy goodness, ("not too much black pleeeze Colin"), but the piece grew in length and self-indulgence until it wouldn't fit. 

We used to have a nice little community on Blogger, years ago. I expect they're all dead now. 

Anyhow... 

These are good times to be a Bexhill United supporter: at the time of writing we’re 7th in the league when a lot of us expected a struggle. In fact, these are good times to support the club at all levels, and if Bexhill doesn’t float your boat, to actually support your local step 5 or 6 club, wherever you are. (Unless it’s Shoreham FC, obviously ☺). 

 At all levels above, for sure you might see more skilful play, but even at Isthmian League level, just one step above us, you'll see players and staff who are only there for the money, who have no real connection to the club or the area. They don't know where the best chip shop or pub is, they won't tell you in private that they're too fat, old, slow or knackered (or all four) to compete any more. Your local hero might (no names!), but he's still a better footballer than you probably ever were and you should respect him, and this level of football, for that. 

 You're here, if you're anything like me, to see solid football, to see tackles that mean something, passes and goals. Yep, their goalie's crap, the floodlights are poor, the pitch is hard and lumpy and the wind off the sea is cutting you in half, but this is the real game. Nobody's doing it for much, or any, money, that tackle just generates some loud swearing rather than a theatrical attempt to get someone sent off - if he stays down he's probably broken something! If a piece of high skill is the exception rather than the rule, well we just appreciate it when it comes and we forgive the blunders because that's just human. 

The manager doesn't think he's a Tuchel or a Klopp, but he's in the same business and takes it just as seriously for those few hours, and his half-time "hairdryer" blows as hard as Fergie's ever did. The referee knows he's not Clattenberg or Dean, but don't ever doubt his commitment to his craft, or the pain that your abuse causes him. 

 No matter what the level of the game, we all go home happy, sad or "meh" at the end of it, and it's the same degree of happiness, sadness, anger or indifference no matter who we support, be it PSG, Man U, or Hassocks FC. Truly.

Thanks for reading, and as for Shoreham, we love you really. Madly, deeply,