We made the long journey down to play Eastbourne United on Saturday 2nd September in the first round of this year’s FA Cup competition after coming through two tough preliminary rounds earlier in August.

We made one change from our loss to Cobham on the previous Tuesday with our Captain Callum Wilson returning after injury to take his place in the back three for us in place of Nick Inwugwu. On the bench, we saw the possible return of Jann Stanley again after a short injury break.

The opening exchanges of the match were mainly in favour of the home team, and we had the odd sporadic attack but all with no end product; it must be noted that the pitch was hard and bobbly and made it difficult to control the ball for both teams. The first 45 minutes petered out into a 0-0 scoreline and the supporters present were hoping for some more goal-mouth action in the second half.

No sooner had the second half started we found ourselves 1-0 behind after a polished finish from the Eastbourne No9 who finished on the half-volley with our goalkeeper just looking at the ball as it found the corner of our net. We really did not have any clear-cut chances even after this setback and did not do to trouble the opposition’s goalkeeper. Then in the 79th minute, we found a way to equalise after a free kick caused mayhem in the opposition box and it found its way to Tommy Williams who crossed for Callum Wilson to equalise. Was there a winner to be found by either of the two teams in the time left, The answer was YES, In the 90th minute we found ourselves 2-1 down after breaking down the left flank and a ball into our box where the opposition player had the ‘freedom of Sussex’ to score the winner; there was not enough time to recover from this setback so our campaign in the FA Cup this year was over.

We need to put this setback behind us quickly as we face a tricky away fixture in Jersey next week when we face the ‘Bulls.’  We then face Sheerwater at home the following Saturday; we need to begin to take some points from these two games to kick-start our season.