XYLOPHONE ON YOUR HEAD

 

Printed in the FA Trophy 2^nd round proper game v Havant & Waterlooville Saturday 27^th November 2021. We won 1-0 in front of 373

‘This has got a bit surreal’ chuckled Radders as superfan Max ran around behind the goal placing a child's xylophone on various peoples bonce while everyone sung ‘You’ve got a xylophone on your head’ Surely that’s a football chant first?

At Eastbourne it was a tambourine – and its only a matter of time before it becomes a doughnut on someones head. Which is the best way to describe the steward at Eastbourne who angrily stomped off with the bin we had been banging while we serenaded him with ‘please don’t take our wheelie bin away…’.

To be fair Eastbourne is a proper community club; the first senior football cub in the country to become a Community Interest Company. A CiC operates as a limited company but must fulfill and abide by certain criteria which benefit the community including an asset lock on its ground. Formed in 1964 they didn’t even move to the Priory Lane until 1983 which volunteers predominately have built up out of a swamp. There’s even a primary school nearby that has water buffalo. Apart from the bin police they are a great bunch who work hard with limited resources to stay competitive at our level.

And everyone loves a trip to Eastbourne as the Slough hoards once again descended on another Sussex town by the sea. I could only stay for the Friday and was recommended the View which promised a sweeping vista across the sea; well apart from my room which looked onto fire escapes. My alarm clock was the clanking hum of an air conditioning unit. They even left a leaflet on my bed asking if I fancied a visit ‘to the vibrant city of Birmingham.’ Er, no thanks. Although my eldest was heading there Saturday to watch Brighton play at Aston Villa.

Now Eastbourne is greedy when it comes to football clubs. Although the town of 100,000 have finally settled on just three senior non league teams after Eastbourne United and Shinewater got married and Langley Wanderers disbanded after only 11 years existence.

Last time I visited was to see the oldest club in Sussex - Eastbourne Town -demolish Shoreham in the County Cup the night before Lock Down Eve 2. I got chatting to some old timers who had moved from Brighton to Langney (not to be confused with Langley) and told of how friends remortgaged their houses to do up Boroughs ground as they powered up the leagues. Over the decades that balance of power has shifted between the three clubs with Borough now on top while United and Town hang out in the Southern Combination Premier. Its Town who used to be our old rivals when the Langney estate was just a bog. Unusually for a county league side they have noisy ultras, that even crowdfunded and built their own stand so they can make some noise and leave other supporters in peace. Their picturesque place is smack bang in the middle of town and I wonder over the coming years if they will once again vie for top footballing spot.

Letters in the local paper complain that Brighton is a dump compared to Eastbourne. But maybe that’s because hardly anyone goes there. Friday nights pub crawl was punctured by quiet streets and closed restaurants, while I had the beach to myself in the morning (OK maybe that’s because it was raining) whereas Brighton is rammed to the rafters day and night.

Saturday midday and the seafront pub was packed with travelling Rebels then in walked Dean and Kieran, Sloughs very own Laurel and Hardy, bickering for hours about the use of the word ignorant. Dean spent most of the night in his car despite having booked a hotel unable to find his room.

I’d bought along an assortment of children's instruments but many broke under constant thumping; the ringing bells didn’t even come with a bell. We made a hell of a noise using the bins as is pre-ordained until one stupid steward said we were going to break it and whisked it away. This is when Kieran WonderWall tried to get chants from Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells going. Quite difficult when it is mainly instrumental and half our support is youngsters who’ve probably never even heard of the album.

Our five match unbeaten run came to an end but we didn’t stop singing and Ben Harris notched up 100 appearance, another goal and the captains armband. This follows Sean Frasers 350 games a couple of weeks previous. Which says a lot about the loyalty that our two managers engender. It’s also worth mentioning how the club rolled out the red carpet for Noreen on her 90^th - another act of class . Helped of course by putting one over the King of Dorking.

Today is all about the FA Trophy which hasn’t exactly been kind to us in the past few years . As Mr. Motivation Rebel Radio Ade pointed out - we have been knocked out of it at home 6 years in a row, all against teams from our level. So you can imagine how thrilled we were to pull Havant out the hat. But I would love a run in the competition. Hornchurch managed to win it last season and its beneath many of the National League sides who would much rather concentrate on trying to get out of the Bastard League as Sutton United's Gandermonium blog so eloquently put it.

The National League is certainly unforgiving and the way things are going for Southend, we could be visiting there next season for another kiss-me-quick bobble hatted seaside jaunt. What a wonderful topsy-turvey fluid world of lower league football we live in. Some might even say, surreal.