THE MOST BORING TEAM IN ENGLAND

To be printed in the Southern League Premier Division game v Arlesey Town Saturday 14th February 2015

It's not often that a Sussex County League side find themselves in the national news. Even if it was a dig that they were even more boring than Aston Villa, you can't buy that sort of publicity. It's bad enough being slagged off by Robbie Savage, there was also a piece in one those rags pretending to be newspapers, but it was the plug on Football Focus that nailed it for a car load of us to head to The Crouch, home of Seaford Town FC to see just how boring they really were.

Seaford is a small picturesque seaside town that at one time was touted as a potential rival to Brighton as the premier resort on Sussex’s coast. But now it has few hotels or guest houses despite having dozens of them before the Second World War. The seafront has no amusements and the beach has lost its golden sand at low tide thanks to a long arm built at Newhaven Harbour. But it's a lovely little town with quirky buildings and shops, and the view from the ground is stunning. I think Seaford residents are more than happy with its more genteel, some would say boring, pace of life. Mind you the town council has been anything but boring recently with allegations of bullying, admin cock ups, infighting, spiralling costs and then trying some poor attemtps and trying to cover it all up.

Seaford have done a lot of ground improvements since the last time I visited. They have a swanky new stand and floodlights, which didn't bring the football hooliganism some locals said would happen when they were seeking planning permission. But chatting to one of their officials the club have been in a bit of a financial black hole and cut back on the teams that represented them. You can still enter from the back of a park and the ground will need quite a bit of work if they are to reach the promised land of the Ryman League. That might be some way off, with Seafords highest ever finish fourth in County League Division One nearly 50 years ago!

So far this season they are pointless with a worse goal record than Aston Villa who are just 662 places above them in the football pyramid. And after watching them fail to score against league leaders Worthing United, you could see why their players need a little more confidence in sticking the ball in the onion bag. But really the pitch doesn't help and it seems insane that something that is so integral to a decent game of football, isn't getting proper investment from the footballing authorities. Unfortunately league ground graders seem more concerned with getting clubs to build stands that will never be full than sorting out pitches.

Not missing a trick Seaford chairman Bob Thompsett told the press "I'd like to invite Villa down here so we can decide once and for all who is England's most boring team. It would be loser takes all if you like. Paul Lambert has looked a bit down in the dumps lately so I'd like to cheer him up. I'm sure his players would enjoy themselves down here. Our pitch does have a few holes and a few dog turds but my wife Chrissie does the best teas in the division."

Failing that, they are trying to arrange a friendly against another club in the country with a terrible record. Stewart and Lloyds Corby Football Club from Northamptonshire, have lost 24 games scoring 16 but conceding 96. Chairman Thompsett added, “It’d be great to meet them halfway to see who is the worst team in the country.”

I can hardly wait for that game, it's got 'instand classic' written all over it.

As they say, the only way is up for Seaford Town and with a canny Chairman, milking the publicity for all its worth, let's hope Seaford start banging in the goals and picking up some points soon.