Match: v Eastbourne Borough - Blue Square Premier

Date: Saturday, August 25th, 2008

Result: Eastbourne 0 Cambridge United 3

The Journey

Departure Time: Just before 9.45am.

Arrival at Ground: The AA route planner, which squabbled with the SatNav all morning, took us through some of the traditional old towns in the Kent and East Sussex countryside, such as Royal Tunbridge Wells; towns that didn't look to have changed much since the advent of the motor car. As you can imagine, it proved to be a circuitous journey with nowhere particularly convenient to stop along the way.

The only blessing was that, despite it being a bank holiday weekend, traffic wasn't bad and we arrived at the ground a little after 12.15pm and we received a very friendly welcome from everyone connected with the club.

At The Ground

The Ground: Eastbourne may be on the coast, but with the ground on the northeast edge of town, the only hint that we were near the sea came from a gull or two that roamed the large swathe of grass between the road and the football ground.

The first view of the ground shows it to be a modern, brick-built stadium with a handy supporters club close by. The front of the stadium has a sloping metal roof with a higher section at one end. Surprisingly, when you get in, this construction turns out not to be the main stand. Instead, it's the stand behind a goal with an area of covered terracing below the windows of corporate areas.

Continuing round the ground more terracing is along the side of the pitch to the right of this end, albeit with only a few wide steps. This uncovered area runs into the main stand that starts from level with the middle of one half of the pitch and ends level with the edge of the penalty area at the other end. At regular intervals at the front of the open terrace and main stand are placed rough-hewn benches of railway sleepers bolted to brick plinths, with an unclear purpose.

There is a bijou press area at the back of this stand, with four seats and large, flip-up benches that mean you need the agility of a troupe of acrobats to insert and extract yourself if you're not using the seat at the very end of the row. There is a larger, benchless area for reporters of the written press beside these seats and the power leads from their laptops tangled into the assorted cables of the radio reporters like some mad knitting project. This made a hasty half-time exit so precarious that I wouldn't have been surprised to hear a drum roll every time I left or returned to my seat.

Picking up our journey round the ground, covered terracing takes over from the main stand; an area that curves round behind the other goal and along the remaining side of the pitch until is draws level with the roadside end of the main stand. After a confectionary stall and a stand of Cordylines - not shrubs you expect to see at a football ground - a Woking-style nissen hut completes the circuit of the ground.

It was pleasant to hear music different form the usual pap played at football grounds. The teams emerged to a brass band sound of 'Sussex By The Sea' and the match ended with 'I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside', presumably played from the same wax cylinder.

View from Away End: Well, there wasn't an away end as such. This was one of those rare occasions when the match was unsegregated so United fans could pretty much wander where they wanted. This didn't mean you could necessarily find a good view though; the rise to the terrace steps was not particularly great, bringing into play the rule that means you end up standing behind someone very tall!

United Fans: As a result of the above United fans were just about everywhere in the ground, particularly in the second half when many changed ends. This led to a tetchy moment or two when an Eastbourne flag was removed, much to the disappointment of its owner.

Home Fans: There were a few 'characters' amongst the home supporters, including one in an Aussie Rules shirt and short shorts who may, or may not have been Paul Hogan and an older gentleman who took exception to Lee McEvilly and sounded uncannily like A.R.P. Warden Hodges from Dad's Army as he yelled, "You're a ruddy hooligan, number nine".

With U's fans everywhere, the singing contest was always going to be rather one-sided.

Club Mascot: A half-man, half-owl creature - the top half being the owl part, of course... it just wouldn't have worked had it been the other way around. It wore a mortarboard for reasons that weren't entirely obvious, but plainly wasn't that learned in the ways of football when it strayed to close to a group of exuberant U's fans and nearly lost its head.

Police/Stewards: You've heard the saying about knowing that you're getting older when the policemen start looking younger. I wonder what it means when a lot of the stewards on duty look barely out of their teens?

Programme: 52 pages for a programme with no price on the front cover. With a few colour adverts, this was in the photocopied style of a parish magazine rather than a glossy programme but there were reams of good articles amongst a reasonable number of adverts.

Food/Drink: As ever, soft drinks were expensive in the bar before the match but inside the ground tea (90p) was decent enough and poured from a traditional-looking teapot. Chips (£1.50 for a cone or a dish, depending on where you got them in the ground) weren't bad either.

Toilets: Despite the facilities being small, there were few queues - even at half time.

Afterwards

The Journey Home: There are many routes you can take to reach Eastbourne and, perhaps not surprisingly, a similar number of routes to leave. None are particularly satisfactory. We went for an alternative way back, but it was slow going. Driving past Pevensey Castle was nice, but that scenic bonus was cancelled out by the horror that is Thurrock Services.

Mileage: 231.5 miles

Total Distance for Season: 589.5 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by David Gray, Paul Johnson, Ryan Johnson and Gordon McMillan

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