I genuinely though my season was over last weekend.  What a way to go out, spending the day with the Budweiser girls at the FA Cup Final.  But no, it appeared not.  I had a pass for this Saturday too.  London Broncos v Wigan Warriors did tickle my fancy, but my rule is “No Rugby League if there is any chance of football”.  So I found myself on websites I have never heard of, let alone visited, which were viewable in the front room rather than my office, and didn’t require anonymous browser capabilities.  Bingo.  The Haarts Kent County  Premier League.  Final two games of the season, and would you believe it, one right on my doorstep.

Metrogas FC play no more than a Delap throw-in from TBIR Towers – perfect.  Except when I investigated further it seemed that the pitch had been booked for a cricket match and a wedding so they were forced to look elsewhere.  The nearest pitch that hadn’t already been ploughed or have a big fat Gypsy wedding on it was at Colney Hall FC, some 9 miles away.  Still doable, especially as the background to the game gave it even more flavour.

Yes this was step 6 of the Non League Pyramid (step 11 in total) and some 3 steps below the level I am used to at Lewes but it promised to be an historic afternoon.  Metrogas needed just a point from the game against visitors Fleet Leisure to secure the title and move up into the Kent Invicta Football League where they could look forward to derbies against Henry VIII’s Eltham Palace and Seven Acre & Sidcup.  Rivalries run deep in SE9 I can tell you, as anyone who has been in the Beehive on a Friday night will testify.  However, promotion and relegation aren’t as straight forward at this level and even if you don’t finish in top spot (or even in top four for that matter) you can apply to step up and may well be accepted.

I genuinely didn’t know what to expect in terms of facilities or attendance, but on both fronts I was very pleasantly surprised.  Add in the presence of 5 (FIVE) Non League Dogs and you had a very impressive backdrop to the game.  Even more impressive on arriving at Colney Hall was the fact it appeared to also double up as the Playboy Mansion of South East London (Have I mentioned I’ve been to the real Playboy Mansion before), based on the secret symbol within their club badge.  The thought of slipping into the grotto was never in my mind.  Instead I slipped into the very well appointed bar, scored a pint of Carlsberg and took my place on the half-way line ready for the final act in the Non League season to be played out.

Metrogas FC 1 Fleet Leisure 2 – Colney Hall – Saturday 18th May 2013
As the final whistle blew a few of the Metorgas players stood motionless, completely unbelieving of the fact they had failed to score in the final 45 minutes of the season.  They tried, they can never be accused of not giving it 100% but through a combination of desperate defending, bad luck and some wayward balls delivered into the box, but in the end they fell achingly short.  Hopefully they can take consolation of promotion via the backdoor but this defeat will still hurt.  Especially as they literally handed Fleet Leisure all three points with two defensive lapses leading to the two goals.

You can read a match report here but a picture can tell a thousand words so here is a short story on the game and our last Non League action of the season.  Roll on July and the start of our Pre-Season training.

Yes, I could blame the dust-bowl of a pitch, the lack of match fitness (or fitness in its entirety) or confusing tactics (I have to blame someone, so sorry Kev as I missed the pre-match briefing due to said train issues) but the simple matter is my days of playing the game are well and truly over.  So never again will I criticise these fine players, who play not for money, but for love.

Forty eight hours later I am sitting at a desk at the most famous stadium in the world, waiting for twenty-two Non League players to take the field in the biggest game in their lives.  For one of these teams, they can look forward to hosting Portsmouth and Scunthorpe United next season, for the other it would be Welling United, Hyde and Braintree Town.  For one afternoon this would be a battle between North and South Wales as to who would be joining Mansfield Town in the nPower League Two next season.

Whilst never an easy way to get promotion, the Play off is the biggest and much lucrative lottery in English football.  Either Newport County or Wrexham would be waving goodbye to the smelly toilets of Ebbsfleet, the constantly waterlogged pitch at Braintree and the bacon rolls at Cambridge.  And of course there was also the lucky charm of the Play Off winners.

The Conference National Play Off was introduced at the end of the 2002/03 season and in the nine seasons since, the winner has gone on to cement their place in the Football League.  In fact ten years ago the first winner was Doncaster Rovers, who have gone onto the Championship and now have a shiny new ground as a keepsake.  Contrast this with the fortunes of the actual Conference winner.  Sure, there are the success stories of Crawley Town and Stevenage (Borough) but also in the past decade there has been Barnet, Aldershot Town and Chester City, all of whom will meet again in the Conference next season.

It’s been written a million times already, but what the heck, let’s make it one million and one.  It’s been a brilliant year for Welsh football.  Whilst Wrexham fans won’t forgive me for saying this, but I hope Newport win.  That way, each of the four biggest Welsh teams will have each won a major honour this season, three of which here at Wembley.  The fact that Wrexham didn’t let the small matter of a FA Trophy final victory distract their league form is testament to their focus on returning to the football league.

I remember Newport County of old.  They first really came to my attention back in 1980/81.  As West Ham were battering all comers in the then Second Division (dropping just 3 points at home all season), Newport County were hanging around mid-table in the league below.  But come midweek it was a different story.  Both clubs were representing their countries in the European Cup Winners Cup (kids – ask your Dad), a trophy that was taken deadly serious and only had one entrant per country.  This was the competition dreams were made of.  Sportsnight was often a heaven just out of reach for us children at the time, but when we were allowed up late, the names of the foreign teams held our imagination, and made the following day’s games in the playground just a little more continental.

The first round saw some big names exit the tournament after two legs.  Celtic, Legia Warsaw, Roma, Monaco and Dinamo Zagreb.  The next round, Sparta Prague and Valencia were gone.  And then it was the last eight.  West Ham United, the mighty and mysterious Dinamo Tblisi, Benfica, Carls Zeiss Jena, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Slavia Sofia, Feyenoord and Newport County. Little Newport County, with the legendary strike force of Tommy Tynan and John Aldridge, taking on Carls Zeiss Jena in the quarter finals of a major European competition.

Nearly 18,000 Welsh fans saw their team come so close to a famous result, managing a 2-2 in East Germany and thus only needing a clean sheet back in Newport.  But it wasn’t to be and Jena won 1-0 and went onto lose to the conquerors of the Hammers, Tblisi in the final.  Less than 10 years later and the same club that had competed with such greats of European football were no longer.  County were relegated from the Football League in 1988 and less than a year later were bankrupt, withdrawing part way through the following non league season.

The long and often dark road back to the Football League for the exiles started the following year and progress has been steady.  The club have been through the rain, and now can see the rainbow (thanks Dolly Parton for that one).  Justin Edinburgh has built a strong squad that for a while this season looked like they may go up automatically but had to make do with a spot in the play offs.  The future looks bright for the club, especially when we factor in the “elephant in the room” of Chairman Les Scadding and his £45 million he won on the Euromillions lottery.  Scadding only became involved in the club in August and so the full effect of his investment is yet to be seen.

At the other end of the stadium were the massed red ranks of Wrexham, themselves European Cup Winners Cup quarter finalists back in 1976 where they lost to eventual winners Anderlecht.  The Dragons, twenty-three times winners of the Welsh Cup as well as winners of the Football League Trophy back in 2005 (aka The Leyland DAF, Johnstone Paint et al) when Sir Alex Ferguson’s son Darren scored in a 2-0 win over Southend United were attempting to get back into the league after a five season hiatus.  Two years ago the club were served with a winding up order and the future looked very bleak indeed, despite finishing in the play off spots.  Since then the club has been taken over as a Supporters Trust (big tick) and this was to be their second trip to Wembley in a little over two months after winning the FA Trophy final against Grimsby Town in March.  It is also the third consecutive

Yesterday the stadium hosted the FA Vase when nearly 17,000 fans saw Spennymoor Town beat Tunbridge Wells 2-1.  Tickets were a sensibly priced £15 (£5 for kids).  Today, that price had risen to £39 on the gate (including a reported £3 admin fee) for this game between the two Welsh sides.  Consequently from our seats, the game was to be played out in front of a backdrop of empty red seats.  Whilst these are once-in-a-decade (or more if you are a fan of the smaller club) occasion, wouldn’t it be better to lower the prices and get more people through the gate?  I knew of many football fans who came yesterday, happy to pay £15 for the game but baulked at playing over £35 for today’s game (the official attendance when announced was a good few hundred LESS than the FA Vase final).

Moan over.  Stand up and be counted, for what you are about to receive as AC/DC would have sung at this point.  Welsh pride rained down onto the hallowed turf, like fire being spat from the mouth of an angry dragon.

Newport County 2 Wrexham 0 – Wembley Stadium – Sunday 5th May 2013
The opening exchanges were understandably cagey.  In previous play off finals the game has taken a while to really get going, with the weight of expectation being felt by the players.  Sixteen minutes in and the first chance of the game was created by the veteran Brett Ormerod who beat his man in the area before seeing his shot hit the wrong side of the post and go wide.  Ormerod again came close just after the thirty minute mark, firing a half-volley over the bar after good work to get to the byline from Johnny Hunt. Newport’s only response was the long throw in into the area but Chris Maxwell had them all covered, leading to frustration from Edinburgh on the bench as his side seemed happy to allow Wrexham far too much space in midfield.

It took nearly to half time for County to produce a decent chance.  Christian Jolley, the forward signed from AFC Wimbledon in November found some space and curled a beautiful effort just wide.  Jolley, wearing gloves (and a short-sleeve shirt) on the hottest day of the year so far had drifted out far too wide during the first half, rarely in the game despite his pace.

The first five minutes of the second half produced more action than the whole of the previous 45 with both teams obviously being told in the dressing rooms that they had to try to attack to win the coveted prize of a place in the Football League.  With both teams kicking towards their own supporters the atmosphere kicked up a gear, with the Wrexham fans around me showing real passion .  Ormerod again should have scored on the hour mark, blazing over the bar after player/manager Andy Morrell’s shot had been beaten into his path by Lenny Pidgeley.  The excitement proved to be short-lived as the game went back into its shell and the predictable substitutions started to arrive with both benches having an eye on a potential additional thirty minutes.

And then it happened….85 minutes on the clock…a hopeful ball over the Wrexham defence saw Jolley take the ball in his stride, hold off a defender and lift the ball over the on-rushing Chris Maxwell.  Deserved?  Probably not on the balance of play but it was a very well taken goal.  Wrexham to their credit didn’t let their heads go down and roared on by the fans at that end of the stadium laid siege to the Newport goal, sending up Maxwell for a couple of corners but it was not to be.  Despite a Ormerod header then couldn’t create anything, and then to add insult to injury Newport scored a second in injury time when Aaron O’Connor smashed the ball home after his first effort was saved by the feet of Maxwell.  Game over, Newport County were on their way back to the Football League after a quarter of a century.

All that was left was for the Wrexham fans to salute their team.  It has been quite a season for the Dragons, and they will feel disappointed to get this close to a return to the Football League.  Whilst they can point to the FA Trophy victory here a few weeks ago as a good return for the season, the ultimate prize was just out of their reach.

For Newport County, the planning for next year can start in earnest.  Their rise from the ashes will give heart and inspiration to many teams who today are down on their luck.  With the cup in their hands, the champagne corks popped, the celebrations began that would ultimately last long into the night all the way down the M4.

Once the last ball has been kicked I will be counting down the days until clubs start to announce pre-season fixtures. My objective of a 100-game season may fall just short this season but I will be back next season, fitter, stronger and willing to travel to even more obscure places to see a game. But hang on, this season still wasn’t quite over yet. The sword of relegation was still hanging over The Dripping Pan. With just one game to go, there was still one spot in the relegation zone left to be decided and Lewes were technically still a “relegation contender”. Granted it would have to take an extraordinary set of results to see that happen, but I look at the fact Titus Bramble is still a Premier League football to prove that football is a funny game and anything can happen. So for those unaware of the current situation, or my visiting colleague from the New York office, here was the low down.

In order for Lewes to be relegated (a concept that would take a few thousand words to explain to any US sports fan) we had to a) lose to Bury Town, b) see Carshalton Athletic win away at Enfield Town, and c) see a seven goal swing to Carshalton Athletic. Possible? Yes. Probable? Even with our poor performances this season, we hadn’t been thumped by anyone this season (well, apart from the 6-1 defeat to Wealdstone). So this wouldn’t be an end of season party, rather a slightly nervous 90 minutes, looking at our phones at events from North London.

Come match day and the traditional end of season sunshine had appeared from behind the rain.  The pitch looked fantastic, just two weeks after the game against Leiston which should have been abandoned.  Ironically this was to be Roger, the groundsman’s, last game in charge of the turf after what was a lifetime.  Never a more loyal and passionate fan you could want to meet and it is volunteers like Roger (or Boysie who was stepping down as programme editor) that keep non league football alive.  Thankfully Roger’s departure will mean we can play some decent pre-match music, especially as Ed Ramsden is still serving his three year ban from the PA system after trying to slip on one too many Fall songs earlier in the season (the actual number was of course one).  So next season there will be a new man on the seat of the lawnmower and in the editor’s chair for the programme.  Who they will be is yet to be revealed, although I have a pretty good idea who the latter will be (The Pan is Round is a catchy title, no?).

The bumper crowd were showing no nerves as they tucked into the Harvey’s.  In fact this had the optimistic feel of a first game of the season, rather than the last.  Bury Town arrived in Lewes with nothing but some pride to play for, knowing that they had once again shown the league they were not to be underestimated.  Whilst not quite making a second successive play off spot (they beat us to 5th place last season by just 2 points), they have once again been there or there abouts in a tougher league.

Luge and Andy were certainly enjoying their afternoon, tucking into the Harvey’s to go along with the various fizzy pop beers they had sampled on the train on the way down.  This was all new to Andy, being a native New Yorker and used to his sport featuring no meritocracy, a franchise-based system, cheerleaders and breaks in play every 3 1/2 minutes.  He’d been to a “soccer” game before, back in November 2009 when he was last in the UK and we took him to see Millwall, but that can hardly be called football can it?  Little did the two know that they were also Match Sponsors and thus had to choose the player of the game. Andy was in his element as he pulled out his calculator to start working out the shots/tackles/passing averages for each player, finally looking disappointed when we said we just give it to Nathan Crabb every week to save the hassle.

Lewes 2 Bury Town 3 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 27th April 2013
As the game entered injury time the packed Philcox Terrace broke into song.  ”We are staying up, I said we are staying up”.  A draw here, coupled with Carshalton’s draw at Enfield Town meant Premier League football was secure for another season.  Or was it? A rumour went around the stand that the ever reliable NonLeagueLive.com website was wrong, and Carshalton were actually winning.  And then Bury Town scored.  All of a sudden it was down to goal difference.  How many were the Robins winning by?  Was there time for Bury to score one, two or even three more than would have relegated us?  Thankfully no.  The referee brought proceedings to an end.  We were safe.  Let the party start.

Should we really have been so happy though?  We certainly didn’t anticipate a relegation fight at the start of the season, especially on the budget we set.  We were massively hampered by injuries to Steve Robinson, Callum Dunne and Jack Walder in the spine of the team, and it took Nathan Crabb some months in the middle of the season to find his shooting boots.  We drew and lost too many games, always seeming to be one goal away from a point or all three.

We started this game similar to the one on Tuesday night at Cray.  Full of midfield invention but nothing reaching the front two. We should have been one up and playing ten men if it wasn’t for a linesman who nobody really understood what game he was watching.  Lewes were awarded a penalty only for him to rule the ball had gone out of play when nobody else had seen it (including the defender tracking back) and then he failed to see a punch on Ben Godfrey right in front of him.  In between those two events, Bury had taken the lead when, perfectly summed up by Deaksy, a hopeful toe poke found the top corner.  One became two from the penalty spot soon after as Bury scored from the penalty spot.  It appeared they hadn’t read the script.

Again, just like Cray, Lewes came out for the second period all guns blazing.  A text-book header from Steve Brinkhurst in the first few minutes of the half raised the spirits in the ground, and when Callum Dunne got some part of his body to a Crabb effort on goal and diverted it into the net there was a genuine feeling we would go onto win the game.  Chris Breach then took a very painful whack to the nose, soon leaving the pitch with blood pouring from the wound, only to appear minutes later with a bandage around the centre of his face.  We didn’t laugh, honestly, and neither did any of his team mates.

So the final act of the season was Bury’s Sands scoring in injury time.  And then it was all over.  Time for the end of season awards.  No surprises that Nathan Crabb picked up a couple and Chris Breach the Player of the Year.  It was disappointing though that Jack Walder didn’t pick up one for worst dressed player, choosing to join in the end of season squad photo trying to look like Olly Murs.

For the players it was time for a night out.  Club Sec Kev had put on his best cardigan for the occasion and would ensure that they stayed on the straight and narrow, handing out fines along the way.  For the officials at the club the long process of planning for next season was already under way.  Non league grounds like the Dripping Pan do not clean, paint or repair themselves and so we need to sort this out, along with the pre-season friendlies, the commercial contracts and of course the all important budget.

But finally the end of the season means that the fans can get to know their loved ones again, reduce their mobile phone bills and cut the grass on a Saturday afternoon.  Sounds idyllic doesn’t it?  No, it is a living hell.  These fine words, good enough almost for Kipling himself sum up what a season means to us fans…I hand you over for one last time this season to Charlie Dobres:-

So after the highs of the away trip to Harrow Borough on Saturday, we woke up on Sunday with a fuzzy head and a realisation that one more win could be enough to secure Premier League survival for another season.  That game would be against Cray Wanderers, just one place and two points above us.  Bromley (South) was our destination, and after a short hop, skip and a jump from JD Wetherspoon (Victoria Station) we were in JD Wetherspoon (Bromley).  A first for me – two Wetherspoon’s in less than a hour.

Of course with wallet busting prices at £2.20 a pint I got the first round in. Clever thinking, eh.  Ah yes, we only had time for one.  Bugger.  But still it was in jovial spirits that we left the pub for the short taxi ride to Hayes Lane, home of Bromley FC and their tenants, Cray Wanderers, the world’s third oldest football club.

These are testing times for Cray.  Mr. Relegation has been hanging around outside Hayes Lane for the past few weeks, waiting for an opportunity to pop in.  Their groundshare agreement with Bromley is due to end next year, and the prospect of a return to the heartlands of St Paul’s Cray seem further away than ever after Bromley council rejected their planning application for a new community stadium in September.  You often have to wonder whether local authorities actually want to see local football teams survive.  Despite all of the hard work of volunteers to secure a long term future for the club AND a benefit to the local community, Cray are back at square one, still having to worry about relegation just like Lewes.

I like going to watch Cray Wanderers and it will be a terrible shame if they are forced into a nomadic existence.  Nice club, nice people, nice fans and more importantly just a short bus ride away from TBIR towers.  It is a rare treat I have these days that I can use public transport to get to a game (well, yes there are the ones in Germany/Denmark/Sweden/every else apart from Lewes) so I was going to make the most of it.

The original game had been scheduled for mid-March but the rain had put pay to that game.  But here we were, at the business end of the season with relegation still hanging over the heads of both teams.  A draw may be good enough for both teams depending on results elsewhere, but nothing beats a win at this stage of the season to just relieve the nerves a bit.

Once again the Lewes fans had come out on a beautiful early Summer’s evening on the London/Kent borders.  As I entered the ground I was greeted with a familiar sound.  ”Golden Goal Sir”..how could I resist?  Two pounds invested, let’s just hope the first one was a Lewes one.  Next stop a pint of Asahi, a bacon and cheese burger and three points please?

Cray Wanderers 2 Lewes 2 – Hayes Lane – Tuesday 23rd April 2013
St George’s Day 2013 9:37pm.  We are deep in injury time and Lewes are losing 2-1.  This wasn’t in the plan.  In fact I don’t think anything was in the plan.  Tonight was just about getting a result and it looks like we are leaving empty-handed.  Well, almost.  I still have a smile on my face from the 35th minute.  A real bitter-sweet moment for me when Cray took the lead with a huge slice of luck, the ball falling from a great height and hitting the completely unaware Bremmer on the head and bamboozling Keiron Thorp in the Lewes goal.  Golden Goal time 35 minutes.  Woo-hoo!  The Cray stewards even went an collected my winnings.  Top club as I said.

One became two on the stroke of half-time when another hopeful ball was played into the area and the Lewes defence decided to all stand around and watch whilst Young wandered into the box, choose his spot and bury it in the corner.  Whilst events in the Champions League brought a mild smile to our faces at half time, the thudding realisation that trips to Mertsham and Crawley Down Gatwick were back on the agenda made the Swiss Roll taste all that more bitter.  Still we had 45 minutes to make it right.

Forty five soon became ten minutes, and hope was disappearing.  Then a mix up in the Cray defence saw Crabb walk the ball into an empty net to give us something to shout about.  Two minutes later and Chris Breach’s header was cleared off the line.  We could still save this game, but time was running out…fast.

Cheers Boysie!

Four minutes of injury time were up when Harry Harding calmly laid the ball into the path of Nathan Crabb after a game of pinball in the box and he drilled it low into the corner of the net.  The question at this point has to be who didn’t end up on the pitch celebrating?  The bench, the subs, Jack Walder and Callum Donaghey, both injured and of course Cynical Dave.  Of course, Dave.  Finally, play restarted (again hats off to Cray’s stewards who simply shepherded everyone off the pitch and no more), the referee blew for time and we had a point.  In the grand scheme of things it was as vital as the three points were at Harrow on Saturday.  Thursday night would determine whether we would be playing for survival on Saturday or not.  But for now it was the best St George’s Day ever.  A last minute goal, a big celebratory bundle and £45 in my pocket for Golden Goal.

Twitter is a great invention for us football fans as we can get up to the second score updates, but only if people are there and able to relay events first hand. Tuesday night’s game between Cray Wanderers and East Thurrock United was watched by around 150 brave souls, yet it appeared no one thought of sending updates on the score, least of all the two clubs involved. The Nonleaguelive website is fantastic but can sometimes lead you astray as it automatically assumes a game is 0-0 unless it gets updates. So whilst we were happy to see the game still at stalemate at half time, there had in fact been two goals. For those who remember the good ol’ days of watching a vital game unfold on Ceefax, this was just as painful.

On Tuesday night Hastings United finished their game at Hendon with 8 men, after 3 were sent off. On Thursday Thurrock ended with 9 against Lowestoft Town, yet for some bizarre reason neither team will be penalised in the final games of the season with suspensions as the cut off point for this season has already passed. The odds on those five still being at their respective clubs next season is slim so what message is that sending out? Perhaps the clubs will be asked to explain their actions to the Ryman League, but what will that achieve?  In the Premier League, or Football League, suspensions kick in almost immediately. Why can’t non leagues adopt the same model? Doesn’t this send out a message that foul play is acceptable at the end of the season?  Another ridiculous non league rule that needs to be revised, although I am sure they are simply too busy planning their end of season gala dinner (which, by the way EVERY club has to buy at least four tickets for…that’s fair, right?).

Not that Lewes can moan about the situation we find ourselves in. Teams at the bottom of the league are not there because of bad luck. At the end of the season we could easily lay claim to awful decisions in the games versus Hastings United and Kingstonian that should’ve given us five more points (ironically both officiated by the same referee) but so can a dozen other clubs. Teams are never “too good” to go down. The simple act is this season Lewes haven’t yet made the top half of the table, the highest league position being 12th. Too many draws in the first half of the season, too many defeats in the second half have meant we are fighting a relegation battle rather than a play-off one as we expected at the start of the season. Clubs with smaller budges than us are challenging for the play-offs such as Metropolitan Police, Hendon, East Thurrock United and Concord Rangers. These clubs survive on crowds a faction of what we see at The Dripping Pan every other week.

Three games left then. Eight days to save a season. All three are winnable, but we’ve been here before this season. A trip to Dave Anderson’s Harrow Borough could’ve just as easily been a trip to Stamford Bridge, but with a but more atmosphere. Boro’ are far from safe themselves. The results this week had simply pulled them back into the mix, sitting just five points above Lewes in the relegation zone. A win and they would be safe. Defeat and derby games versus Cheshunt next season could be on the cards.

Earlsmead is the palatial home of Harrow Borough since 1934. It is one of the only grounds in England that still has the bomb shelters erected during World War Two. The roof of the ex-Anderson shelter, named after their current manager, Dave, is still visible in the corner of the ground.

With survival at stake, the Lewes Lunatic Fringe met up under the watchful eye of the police at Marylebone. Some cynics would suggest they were there to marshall the Stoke fans arriving for the game at QPR, but we knew better. Big Deaksy, Cynical Dave, Terry Boyle…heck even Patrick Marber had dusted down the Fila for this one. If we were to go down, we’d go down fighting, just like they say on Green Street or Football Factory, but with a few more Greene King London Glory Ales inside us.  The Lewes Express was running fast to Premier League survival, with one stop on the way at Wembley Stadium (railway station).

Harrow Borough 0 Lewes 2 – Earlsmead – Saturday 20th April 2013
This was one of these day which restores your love in the beautiful game.  The sun was shining, the beer was flowing, the company was top notch and we won three points.  Whilst the mood on the way up on the Survival Express was one of uneasy hopefulness, full of “what if’s”, on the way back it was exhausted relief.  It hadn’t been a great game but for the first time in a few weeks we looked tight at the back, organised in midfield and offered a threat up front.

Perhaps it was the very real threat of relegation, or the return from a four month injury lay-off of centre-back and club captain Steve Robinson.  But at the end of the day three points are three points.  Add in some favourable results around us and the win tipped the Rooks from relegation probables to possibles……and with a game against fellow relegation battlers Cray Wanderers to come in just three days time, survival was back in our hands.

The away support was once again fantastic, supplemented by the non playing members of the Lewes squad.  The word “team” has never been stronger than for this must win game.  The sunshine was certainly very welcome, but we would have easily swapped the clement weather for three points any day.  In truth it wasn’t the best of games.  In fact the official twitter account of the home side tweeted in the first half “this is the worst half of football we have seen this season”.  With the game ticking down to half time, and with neither keeper being tested, we were looking forward to some half time hospitality in the boardroom.

But then a hopeful punt in the air saw the Harrow centre-back and keeper hesitate and Nathan Crabb sneak in between and place a perfect lob over their heads and into the corner of the net.  The ball “nestled” in the corner of the net.  Possibly the best word in football.  Nestled.  We all took a second to look at the ball in the net, nestling, before we broke into celebration.  Not only did we look solid, we were now winning.  And the sun was still shining.

The second half saw us spending far too long looking at the scores from elsewhere on our phones, nervously remembering other one goal leads we had thrown away in the past.  But then came the defining moment in the game.  Godfrey chased the ball to the touchline, fell over with a defender who then proceeded to lay on the ball.  Despite our protests and the fact the incident happened no more than five yards away, the linesman gave nothing.  Fortunately, the referee some thirty yards away saw the offence and awarded a free kick.  Harry Harding delivered the free-kick to the far post, Nathan Crabb got his head to it and it appeared to be bundled home by a combination of Ben Godfrey and a defender.  Two nil, time for a little smile.

The last period of the game saw a few nervous moments at the far end, but Lewes looked more solid than we have seen in previous weeks and the final whistle led to a huge sigh of relief.  Cheap Polish lagers and a packet of onion rings were our celebratory treat for the way home and as we passed Wembley we raised a can.  We may not ever get this close to the national stadium, but it looked like we would still be a Premier League side for another season.  Away days don’t get much better than this.

I’m not here to tell you about the joys of having a beer when you are watching the game, eating freshly cooked food locally sourced (Sussex Stilton on your venison burger sir?), whilst taking part in the age-old tradition of changing ends at half time. We all know that is what makes watching non league football so great. Nope, I am here to extol the pleasures of one feature of the game at this level. Something that all you Premier League or nPower followers simply cannot understand the pleasure it brings us, whether our team is winning or losing. Two words. Golden Goal.

Whether you be 8 or 80, punk or rocker, innie or outie, Beatles or Stone, rich or poor, you have as much chance as winning as your mortal enemy. To me, it is quintessentially Non League, summing up the proximity the fans can get to the players themselves. The volunteers who man the buckets on the other side of the turnstile don’t need a long-winded sales pitch. A simple shake of the bucket and the utterance of those two words are enough to have even the tightest fan handing over a pound or two. Pure love goes into the preparation of the tickets – each is hand cut, hand folded and hand blessed, ready for the game.

Some, like Cynical Dave would never dream of opening their ticket until that first goal goes in, unwrapping the carefully folded piece of paper as if it were the last present under the Christmas tree. Others know their lucky minute from the first kick, caught in a dilemma if the ball is in your penalty area when the big hand ticks over to the right minute. Surely it’s OK to secretly hope for a goal, even if it’s at the wrong end if it means winning £25? Twenty-five pounds. A Pony. That’s a full day out in the non leagues and enough for your bus fare home where as that would get you little more than a seat behind a concrete post for thirty minutes at Loftus Road.

Some fans will always buy their tickets from the same person, digging deep into the bucket to secure their chance of winning. For me? I’m easy. I will often wait until kick off, relishing the fact that few tickets are left. There are, of course, some tickets you don’t want. I have pulled out nil-nil just once, which at this level is as good as throwing your money away (Lewes play out one per annum on average at The Dripping Pan). The 1st minute is also not a very good bet, as few teams tend to attack from the first whistle, although that would have been a winner twice this season. The 45th or 90th minutes are of course the best tickets as these give you the respective injury time as well – as we saw on Thursday against Margate.

And then there is the definition of the goal time. A ticket for the 30th minute could mean anything from 29 minutes and 1 second, or 30 minutes 59 seconds depending on who announces the goal time. On the occasions I have held the microphone I define the goal in the former, rather than the latter.

Often, holding out hope for winning the golden goal is the best part of the match. Surprisingly, non league games can often be dire. But having that potential small pot of gold in your hand, or pocket is often enough to get you through the worst.

So let’s look at the real life emotions of the Lewes fans as they took their place on The Jungle for the first half of the game against Leiston. Ah yes, Leiston. It is a dirty word down in these parts. Whenever things are looking bleak, you can snap out of it with the sentence “remember Leiston”. Whilst the two teams are today playing at the same level, back in October 2008 they were separated by four divisions. The teams met in the Fourth Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, one step away from the first round proper. After a surprise draw in Suffolk, few gave the Suffolk side any hope of victory in the replay. But not only did they win, they won easily, setting up a tie with Fleetwood Town. Don’t mention the word to captain Chris Breach who played on that night.

So four and a half years later we were meeting as equals. In fact Leiston were as good as safe as you could be for another season when they arrived in monsoon-like conditions.  Lewes needed the points. Badly. All of us would of course swap not winning the golden goal for three points, right? Dave….RIGHT?  At 2.45pm the main concern was whether the game could actually start at all.  It looked like the Golden Goal tickets would all be null and void, unless someone had slipped in one that simply said “cancelled”.

Lewes 0 Leiston 1 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 13th April 2013
To the victor, the spoils of war are as sweet as nectar, so says my headline today.  Alas that wasn’t any of us today.  In fact with teams around Lewes pulling off more amazing results (bottom of the table winning at title-chasing Lowestoft Town would have busted on coupons), we could only grumble at the full-time whistle that the game should never have been completed.  Conditions were poor, but were the same for both sides as they tried to play the ball through the puddles.  Standing water made running, let alone passing almost impossible and so it was no surprise that the winning goal came from a weather-assisted mistake.

By the time Gareth Heath had seen his corner fly into the net, thanks to the strong wind which took keeper Tom Betts by surprise I had already lost any hope of winning my Golden Goal.  For my piece today I had bought 5 (five!) tickets, ranging from 5 to 72 minutes.  Most of the 400 plus crowd were resigned to seeing a goal-less draw as neither team could beat the elements.

Lewes came out for the second period wearing last season’s home kit such was the state of their attire after 45 minutes.  Chances were few and far between.  The Rooks had a good shout for a penalty as a Leiston player slid a dozen yards into the ball, clearing making contact with his arm but that would have been harsh.  Only the brave (Dave Lamb), foolish (Nick Williams) and the Scots (Cynical Dave) braved the Jungle in the first half as the rain lashed down.  For the second half not one person stood on the open terrace – a sight that has rarely been seen at The Pan.

The eyes of many in the Philcox were glued on their smartphones as events elsewhere started to unfold.  A draw wouldn’t be a disaster for Lewes, even if most of the teams around us were at least getting a point.  In fact with twenty minutes to play we had moved up to 4th from bottom.  Who needs to win the golden goal when life is good.  But then Leiston, on a rare venture into the Lewes box gained a corner.  Heath swung it in, looking for the onrushing players on the edge of the six-yard box.  However, the strong wind took hold of the flight and the ball arced under the bar, despite Betts desperate attempts to keep it out.

Full time saw the players get a standing (well, we were hardly likely to sit down on the wet terrace were we?) ovation.  You could not fault the spirit or the effort today.  The elements (and Leiston) had won.  The fight for survival would take us to Earlsmead, north-west London, home of Harrow Borough in seven days, themselves not quite safe from the drop zone where the Rooks would have to fight for the golden goal and more importantly, the platinum three points.

Ah the magic of Pink Floyd on a cold Thursday night in East Sussex, an almost as famous quote as the classic line utter by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now of loving the smell of Napalm in the morning. “It smells like victory, son” he said as we entered the Pan after a difficult week and took a long, hard, deep breath it was Harvey’s we could smell, the smell of winners, surely.

So why the reference to Pink Floyd?  Well, some of you may know that 45 Years ago Lewes FC helped put on a concert at Lewes Town Hall featuring Pink Floyd.  The club was due to mark the anniversary with a Pink Floyd themed game back in January against Margate.  Giant inflatable pigs were strung from the floodlights, tigers were loaned from a zoo to be set free on the hour mark, a spotlight had been set up to shine on midfield diamond Jack Walder….and then the rain/snow/ice/fog came down and the game was called off. None was more disappointed than Luge Pravda, on a rare trip over from New York who had coughed up (well, I had on his behalf) to lead the teams out in full kit as the official matchday mascot (he thought it was just matchball sponsorship).

With the design genius of The Darker Side of the Moon consigned to the history bin, the re-arranged fixture obviously had to feature Floyd.  What could better DSOM?  Of course, The Wall.  And unbelievably Mr Pravda was here again, ready to put his PE shorts on.  What were the odds on that I hear you wonder.  What odds indeed, judging by the fact I arrange the commercial meetings across the business and what odds that the bloody snow would make an unwelcome return to scuttle that plan too.  So third time lucky.  As a precaution I had managed to send Luge Pravda out to the Californian desert, meaning the game would definitely be on.

Our visitors had led the Ryman Premier for a time early in season, then fell away, primarily due to postponements, although in recent weeks they had returned to the play off spots.  Unfortunately, the Rooks’s form was definitely that of a relegation side, picking up just one point from the last six games, and that was in the crazy game at Hendon on Saturday where in the first forty-five minutes Lewes found themselves two-nil down, playing against 9 men and awarded two penalties.  Margate hadn’t done us any favours by shipping four against bottom of the table Carshalton, a game which saw Keeper/Manager Craig Holloway sent off.  Lewes hadn’t lost on a Thursday night this season (well, they hadn’t actually played a game) so the omens were good for a vital three points.  If only football was that simple!

Lewes 2 Margate 0 – The Dripping Pan – Thursday 11th April 2013
Tom Paine summed it perfectly when he uttered “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph”.  Tom wasn’t talking about X-Factor or Britain’s Got Talent, but about hard-fought victories on cold nights, when the ground under foot was wet and muddy and mist swirled all around.  The players left the dressing room at 7:43pm last night as mere men and returned two hours later as conquering heroes, warriors who had taken on the 300 and won  Over the top hyperbole?  Absolutely, but last night was one of those nights where even the most Premier League-tainted football fan would’ve rediscovered their love for the beautiful game.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.  It wasn’t full of silky, to feet passing, but it was full of passion, guts and above all pride.  All too often the announcement of four minutes worth of injury time is the signal for Lewes to switch off.  I would wager there are no teams at this level of non league who have conceded more goals in the final four minutes in the past two seasons.  Last night when Pav raised the scoreboard and announced to East Sussex there would be four minutes to play, the fans huddled on the Philcox shuddered with fear.  The one goal advantage was virtually wiped out of our minds.  To us battle hardened fans it was only a matter of time before Margate scored.

But we all under estimated the Rooks.  Every player to a man only had one thought.  Win.  I had my Fergie stopwatch app running.  3 minutes 24 seconds were on the clock.  The ball was played square to Steve Brinkhurst twenty-five yards out.  He looked up, drew back his foot and hit the ball as hard as he could, knowing that if it flew wide time would surely be up.  It struck a Margate player, changed direction and the ball span over Holloway in the Margate goal and into the top corner.  Un-bloody-believable.  Beer rained down as fans threw their pints of Harvey’s in the air, strangers hugged, children were probably conceived.  Game over.  The four-minute hoodoo had been broken.

As I said earlier, hyperbole?  Absolutely.  But unless you have felt the despair of seeing your slide slowly sliding down the table, despite still playing well, and all of your relegation rivals winning games where bookies wouldn’t give them odds then you will know that feeling.  For me, having the word “relegated” on my footballing cv was a dark thought that kept creeping in front of my eyes – primarily because my work colleague kept writing it on a post-it note and leaving it on my desk!

Let’s not get carried away though.  The win took Lewes one place up the table, and still just a point above the drop zone BUT it gives us hope, and by us I mean everyone involved with the club.  After the game I sat down with manager Simon Wormull.  He was the epitome of calm, sitting in the office working out who was fit enough for Saturday.  Ah yes, Saturday…90 minutes of pleasure and pain please, with an additional helping of drama and nervous checking of Nonleaguelive.com.

Who wants mid-table mediocrity anyway?  As Pink Floyd once famously sang, can you tell Heaven from Hell…well in games like this it is goals like Steve Brinkhurst’s that mean we are heading up rather than down.

The other issue with time zones is you are never really sure what is going on in the old of football and when. The Champions League simply passed me by this week, whilst important scores in the Ryman Premier failed to make it onto my radar. As if I needed to really check anyway. I mean Cray Wanderers were hardly likely to go to play-off chasing Bury Town and win, were they? And Thurrock’s chances of anything at title-chasing Lowestoft Town were as slim as Kate Moss. So landing at Heathrow n the early hours was. Rude awakening as I checked the scores on my phone. Mr Relegation was well and truly on the A27.

Alas the delay in my return trip (thanks UK Border control for not having enough people working at T5 to cope with the inbound flights!) meant that I wasn’t able to join the legions of the Lewes Lunatic Fringe on the Road To Wembley where Hendon, themselves a perennial relegation candidate, were already tucked up safe and sound for the season. Perhaps they will have already packed their bags for their summer trip to Clacton, meaning the Rooks would return from Middlesex with three points. We can but hope.

For me, my fun was going to be found a bit closer to home. I was dropping down into the Kent Premier League. Potentially, Lewes could be playing against one of the teams currently fighting it out at the top of the league. Current leaders Erith & Belvedere were all set for the next step up, ground sharing with Welling United. Second-placed VCD have been in the Ryman League a few years ago, holding their own too before a ludicrous ground grading decision saw them forcibly relegated (ridiculous considering a recent decision given in favour of another certain Ryman League team anyway). Tunbridge Wells, finalists in the FA Vase in 4 weeks time, carrying the hopes of a County with them, have a minimum of 3 games a week from now until the end of the season as a reward for being successful in the cup.

But my destinations were straight down Watling Way, the Roman Road that allowed those Roman cricket fans to travel down to Canterbury, or Durovernum Cantiacorum as it was known in those days. I was going to see a game on either side of the Medway, the aquatic barrier separating the Men of Kent from the Kentish Man.

Despite having Gillingham on the doorstep, Charlton Athletic running coaches on every matchday from the Medway towns and the new non league giants of Maidstone United just at the bottom of Bluebell Hill, Rochester United and Lordswood continue to slowly make progress on and off the pitch.  Rochester were the club formerly known as Bly Spartans, formed by a Geordie with a lisp. The club was only formed 30 years ago, and slowly made up the leagues until they were invited to take part in the inaugural Kent Invicta League in 2010.  Last season they were crowned champions of that league and moved into the top-level of the county game for the start of this season.

Lordswood’s development is a few years ahead of Rochester’s.  They joined the Kent League back in 1996.  For the last few seasons they have struggled at the lower end of the able, but the expansion of the league from 12 to 16 teams has given the club fresh motivation. This season they have done something they have never done before, reaching a senior cup final for the first time (where they will be playing Tunbridge Wells next Sunday) and reaching the 4th round of the FA Vase where they eventually lost to finalists Spennymoor Town.

Rochester United 0 Corinthian 3 – Rochester Sports Ground – Saturday 6th April 2013
The visitors Corinthian were never really troubled in this game, as the frustration of Rochester manager Glen Barlow was all to obvious.  ”You are a f#cking d!ckhead” he shouted at one point during the first half towards the referee.  With no more than thirty people watching the game it is hard to excuse either the outburst, or the officials who didn’t hear it (I was on the other side of pitch and heard it).  He had little to complain about.  Corinthian bossed the first half of this game on a pitch that played as if we had had weeks of hot weather.  However, it was a set piece that led to the opening goal in the tenth minute when Alfie May tapped home from a corner, with the home side distracted by the centre-back’s huge afro.

The Rochester Sports Ground is really no more than a Sunday League pitch with a small stand on one side.  Floodlights have been installed enabling them to play at this level, but significant work needs to take place to bring them up to a standard where they could apply for promotion to the Ryman League.  This is a real issue for the Kent FA.  They want to comply with the FA’s request to have a 20 team County League (currently there are only 16 teams in the league) but there aren’t enough teams with facilities in the county who could compete.  In fact there are rumours that Crowborough and Rye, both in Sussex, may switch across to the Kent League.  In some way it is a mark of their success, with 8 teams playing in the Ryman League South (plus still Chatham Town in the North) but it is hard to see who else can make the step up.  So Rochester United’s facilities are less of a concern than they would be in other regions.

Two late goals sealed a comfortable win for Corinthian, and their impressive season continued.  But what was happening on the other side of the Medway?

Lordswood 1 Canterbury City 0 – Martyn Grove – Saturday 6th April 2013
I came across the existence of Lordswood a few years ago.  The club is in the constituency of football mad Tory MP Tracey Crouch and she had mentioned them to me when I interviewed her back in October 2011 so I started following them on Twitter.  Through one of those bizarre off-beat conversations one day I found out that the man behind their Twitter feed, Paul Caulfield, had once won a date with Joanne Guest.  He was my hero after that moment, and a soft spot had been developed for the club.  But this was my first visit to Martyn Grove, located in a leafy part on the edge of the Medway Towns.

The game was scoreless when I arrived, with neither team testing the respective keepers. It was certainly a homely little ground, with one smallish covered stand, although for the real ground-hoppers out there (remember I AM NOT A GROUNDHOPPER!) they will be disappointed to hear that you cannot walk around the far end of the ground, so no swapping ends at half time.

Lordswood looked the much stronger of the two sides, and it was no surprise when Rob Norman put them in the lead on the hour mark from close range when the away team defenders seemed to go walkabout.  Canterbury had a great shout for a penalty in the 70th minute, but the referee decided that the player went to ground too easily (I heard him tell the Canterbury Physio this as he was treating the offended player).

So another three points for Lordswood, and their best ever season simply gets better and better.  They can now look forward to the Kent Senior Trophy Final against Tunbridge Wells next Sunday.  Certainly in these parts, the future is bright, the future is Orange (and black).

Back to reality then and the continuing fight against Ryman Premier League relegations…sigh.

The series ran for years, including a film in 1977 supposedly set in Spain, and featuring Andrew Sachs as a clueless Spanish hotel employee – as if that sort of character would ever work! Anyway, back on topic, the reason I laugh is because of a line in the film where Mr.Grainger needs to use the toilet on the airplane and its suggested he does it over Bognor to gain revenge for a holiday ruined by the British weather when he was younger. Little things please little minds, as Katie Price would undoubtedly say.

So Bank Holiday Monday and the second Sussex derby in 48 hours. Unfortunately Saturday’s defeat against Hastings United had seen a big black cloud descend on the Dripping Pan.  We needed a big boost, something akin to what the first meeting of the Rooks and the Rocks delivered at Christmas.  The game on Boxing Day at The Pan, played in God-awful conditions the like of which we haven’t seen for at least a week saw The Rooks take all 3 points. Since then, wins have been scarce but this was all about the bragging rights between East and West Sussex. The game in December had attracted a Ryman Premier League high of 883 fans, although few who were there will remember much more than the incessant rain and the bonkers away fans who stood on the open Jungle cheering their team on. Three months later and the weather has hardly changed. Snow had fallen virtually every day in March so the 1 April would be a perfect day for a visit to the seaside, and what better place that Bognor, a town that was awarded its “Regis” (by appointment to the King) in 1929 although many commentators believe his reaction to the suggestion by an aid was to say “Bugger Bognor”.

Taking the British 70′s Sitcom to another level, the Lewes fans would be making their way along the A27 on Clive’s, one of the club’s directors, old bus.  Not that Clive is a modern day Stan Butler (secretly I think he wants to be a Blakey), but what better way to travel to the seaside than on an old-fashion Charabang!  Bottles of Milk Stout were loaded on board with tongue sandwiches all round for the trip westwards.  Who wouldn’t want to travel in style?  Well, Danny Last and I for ones but that is because we had another agenda.

Can I just say at this point that I think the Sussex League are a great bunch of chaps. They realise us football fans who love nothing more on our public holidays than a game or two, so they stipulate that all of their games kick off at 11am on Bank Holidays. If the pubs were open, I’d raise a glass to their good health….So before we headed along to the home of The Rocks, we had a small matter of a visit to The Lashmar, home of East Preston for the local derby against Worthing United.

Whilst located some 275 miles south of Preston, Lancashire, it is still east by a few  degrees and those they are able to use the name East Preston. The club are certainly on the up and are pushing for promotion to the Ryman League off the back of a league and cup double last season, which wasn’t without some contraversey (Club Sec Kev pissed on my chips at this point by telling me they couldn’t go up due to ground grading issues).  In fact this game was seen as a grudge match as last season East Preston “nicked” the management team led by Dominic Di Paola from the visitors Worthing United.  This season with just a few games to go East Preston sat in third place in the Sussex County League One, just four points behind leaders Peacehaven but with two games in hand.  In David Pleat speak, the league was certain to go down to the wire.

East Preston is no more than a village, with a population of just under 6,000 including a certain Desmond Lynam.  Of course Des would be at the game – he loves football and it was on his doorstep. Heck, I’m sure that Lashmar was even in his back garden.  Danny was so sure that Des would be there that he brought his photo of him and the Dishy One he took back in the day.

So 1st April…April Fools Day.  I was 10 miles outside of Littlehampton when Danny called me. “Game off Stu, Worthing can’t raise a team”.  Yeah right…April Fools Day and all that. But it appeared the joke was real.  Worthing United, bottom of the Sussex League, could not even muster 7 players.  So much for pre-planning.  We could of course just admitted defeat but there is no clause for that in the EFW/TBIR handbook.  So twenty minutes later we eventually found Chichester City’s Oaklands Way ground after first finding a sports centre, some train sidings (the floodlights fooled us),  a mobile phone mast and finally a pub (well, that was the Plan C anyway).

It didn’t seem to be the biggest gig in town.  In fact the 34 people I counted watching included two dogs and a tennis player who kept popping in to retrieve his overhit balls.  Kenny Kegg, the artist formally known as Kenny Legg, would have been in his element.  The oldest linesman in the world who had a cup of tea on the side of the pitch, probably prepared by his wife who also made him wear his gloves; the oldest group of Chichester City ultras; two chair/table sets bolted down to the floor – the type you see in your local Wimpy.

Chichester City 0 Arundel 0 – Oaklands Park – Monday 1st April 2013
Back in 2010 the then manager of Chichester CIty Mark Pulton was in the dugout for a cup match against Redhill.  Obviously unimpressed with what he was seeing, the Chairman called Pulton and fired him during the game.  If the chairman was watching today, he must have been tempted to press the button on a game where had to wait until the 92nd minute for any moment that is worthy of reporting in a game that was played in freezing cold conditions, on a very bobbly pitch, but two teams who would have probably agreed to a draw before the game and got an extra two hours in bed. But then, an Arundel player skipped around the keeper, was hauled down and the visitors had a penalty.

The penalty kick was entrusted to a player called “Chippy”…when he took the ball an Arundel fan next to me groaned.  It appears Chippy wasn’t known for his humours quips, his trade as a carpenter or his ability to play Liam Brady-esque cross field balls but rather his love of fried potato objects.  Chippy ran up, side-footed it and the keeper turned it around the post.  Full time whistle blown, onwards and upwards.

I’d never been to Bognor and it looked relatively pleasant as we drove along the seafront.  Our destination was a Weatherspoons pub.  We were going to spend our Bank Holiday in a Weatherspoons at the English seaside.  How had my life come to this? Any depressive state was soon lifted as a pint of Ionis Coffee Porter and a foot-long hot dog was placed in front of me.  Life couldn’t get any better, well until 5pm that was for sure!

We made our way to Nywood Lane, home of the Rocks.  One of the best non league grounds you can ever ask to visit.  The club house is a cavernous affair fit to grace any ground and the Lewes fans who had come in their numbers were hoping that this wouldn’t be a weekend horribillis after the defeat to Hastings.  The fate of the Rooks was still in our hands with Wingate & Finchley below in the table, having played a game more.  Simple really, just make sure we match their results.  Our season had come down to spending 90 minutes looking at nonleaguelive.com rather than what was happening on the pitch.  That is not how the season should pan out.

Bognor Regis Town 3 Lewes 1 – Nywood Lane – Monday 1st April 2013
Prior to the games over Easter I thought we would take 3 points.  My heart said at least four points (although 6 were possible), but my head would take one win out of the two.  I still genuinely believe that 38 points would be enough to keep teams up this year, which was two more wins.   Zero points was never in the plan.  Zero points AND Wingate & Finchley picking up 4 points was definitely not in the plan.  And that is what happened.  Happy Easter everyone!

It is hard to take many positives out of the game.  Lewes didn’t play bad, Bognor Regis didn’t play that well.  But when a chance came along, the Rocks took it.

The first half was a even affair, which can translate into the word “dull”.  But the truth be told we would still take a 0-0 from the game.  As we made our way around the pitch towards the bar for a half-time pick me up we heard a big “keeper’s ball” shout from Kieron Thorp in the Lewes goal.  The ball sailed over his head and found Pearce at the back post who hammered the ball home. It couldn’t get any worse – oh, it could. Wingate were drawing.

The second half saw a change in tactics from the Lewes bench and with the wind behind them they soon realised that the way to the Bognor goal was the ball over the top for Steve Brinkhurst to chase.  Near the hour mark one fell perfectly for Brinky, who did a little jinky around the keeper and slotted into an empty net.  Queue mass celebration from the Rooks fans behind the goal who still believed.  A few minutes later and Brinky had another one on one chance.  It seemed Lewes had found the achillies heel of the home side.

With twenty minutes to go Lewes were still on top.  They sent up the big men from the back for a corner.  Less than sixty seconds later the ball was in the net.  The Lewes net.  The corner didn’t beat the first man, was cleared, they broke down the left, the ball came over and Wills slotted home.  In an almost repeat of Saturday’s game against Hastings, Lewes conceded another within two minutes as Pearce scored in the 73rd minute.  Bugger Bognor.

It couldn’t get any worse, surely?  Oh yes it could.  Wingate scored two goals in sixty seconds away to Hendon.  We were now 3rd from bottom, with the two teams below us having 4 (four!) games in hand.  If anyone didn’t believe we were in a relegation fight before this weekend, now they had to.

There isn’t much more to say really.  It was a long drive home, one to contemplate other things.  As I was lost in my thoughts I was cut up on the A24 by a Range Rover travelling at ridiculous speed.  A pink Range Rover.  If this was to be my last day on earth I didn’t want to remember a bad day out in Bognor and a pink Range Rover.  We are Lewes. We will not give up the fight.  We wont be druv.

A week has elapsed since Lewes lost to a referee and his liberal interpretation of the rules regarding injured players.  Since then many words have been written on forums, websites and social media but nothing really matters.  It is irrelevant if the referee from last week had admitted the error of his ways, and as penance wandered down Lewes High Street in an Eastbourne Borough shirt made of sack cloth.  The result stands and Lewes are still deep in the sticky toffee mire.

Seven days on and I have no idea who the current favourites for relegation from the Ryman Premier League are. It could be two from eight in all honesty.  A few weeks ago when some of our relegation rivals had up to eight (8!!!) games in hand, the future certainly didn’t look orange. But since then winter has refused to remove its icy grip on the league and now those teams potentially face a farcical game every three days just to finish the league by a ridiculously early end of April deadline. It’s hardly like this season is unique. The last three seasons have seen poor weather decimate the Ryman league fixture list. Once bitten, twice shy? No, three times bitten, fourth time plead ignorance it seems.

So clubs like Thurrock and Hastings United still have four games in hand on Lewes as I write this, but with fixtures for them still falling foul to the weather, the points in the bank are certainly favourable. Thurrock have suffered due to the pitch at Ship Lane with poor drainage and the pitch being used by two other sides. Hastings are paying the price of the  heinous crime of having the best run a Ryman team has had in the FA Cup for decades. Boo, hiss, the cheek of the Arrows in being successful!

Unfortunately the league takes no account for cup success. On one hand they are happy to bask in the glory of Hasting’s cup run, representing the league in front of the national media, whilst on the other they are given no leeway in terms of fixture congestion caused by the cup run.

I still do not understand why the league has to finish so early? The last games have to be played on the 27th April. Nine days later on Bank Holiday Monday, the play off finals will determine which teams are promoted. The league will then restart some four months later.  Some leagues, such as the Kent Premier have agreed to a week extension. Even those highly paid prima donnas in the Premier League get less of a break and still don’t moan. Many comparable leagues in Europe continue their season into May, and even in the case of Italy and Denmark, June. I know only too full well the club’s dilemma of the weekly wage bill but perhaps there could be some creative thinking in these parts. Many players are not on contract, rather on pay per week. Couldn’t they adopt a pay per game basis for final part of the season?

Anyway, back to today and the local derby against Hastings United (boo, hiss). Our rivalry goes back all the way to 1066 where the locals still believe to this day that King Harold was shot in a friendly fire accident by a Lewesian. Simmering rivalry is a phrase I would use to describe tensions over the past thousand years, with blame being thrown across the River Ouse for such incidents as The Great Fire of London, The Wall Street Crash and Joe Dolce getting to number one back in 1981. Fortunately football came along and we’ve been Facebook friends ever since.

Nobody was more pleased, in a jealous “that could have been us” way, of their amazing run to the FA Cup 3rd round this year. My only disappointment, and we see it everywhere in football, is that a lot of those “life-long loyal” Hastings fans who went to the Riverside seem to have forgotten where The Pilot Field is when the team really need their support as they fight against relegation.  Despite a high of over 4,000 at home for the FA Cup game against Harrogate Town, just four days before only 458 came to the game versus Concord Rangers.  On Tuesday night the crowd versus Met Police was down to 219.  When the going gets tough, those loyal fans get going. It would be a real shame if the low point of such a momentous season is a drop into the Ryman League South. We of course wish our good neighbours all the best in their remaining 11 games AFTER today.

So it’s been a remarkably quiet week in Lewes. After the unbelievable scenes last Saturday against Kingstonian and *those* decisions that even had the K’s fans belly chuckling, our official line was one of disappointment that the official did not interpret them in accordance with the FIFA rules of the game. Inside of course we were fuming, but the big positive was the excellent second half effort and intent so come 3pm on Saturday when the Rooks lined up against Hastings, the fire would still be in the bellies.

A visit of Hastings this season also means a visit from Hugo Langton. If you ever feel your love of the game waning, talk to Hugo. The man loves the game, and wants to see it coached in the right way, played in the right way and managed in the right way. Hasting’s gain is the rest of football’s loss. But of course for two hours on Saturday afternoon we hoped he had got his tactics all wrong and that Hastings would leave the Pan with an arrow firmly in their behind.

Lewes 1 Hastings United 2 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 30th March 2013
Of course a professional like Hugo hadn’t got it wrong and two set pieces within a 90 second spell in the first half saw Hastings United take all three points in this relegation battle.  Whilst Lewes tried to throw the kitchen sink at the visitors in the second period, there wasn’t enough invention to get past a solid Hastings defence who used the mantra “if in doubt of the plan, boot it out of the Pan”.

With the sunshine threatening to spoil the run of poor weather as we prepared to enter the fourth month of the year, Lewes started brightly and could have had a penalty as early as the 2nd minute when Brinkhurst was bundled over as he entered the box.  The referee blew his whistle for a foul but looked to his linesman for guidance of where the offence took place.  He looked back, shrugging his shoulders.  Benefit of doubt to Hastings and a free-kick was awarded.

Whilst the Rooks looked busy, they struggled to break down the Hastings back four, seemingly forgetting the attacking intent they had last week against Kingstonian.  However, the opening goal took everyone, including me by surprise.  I had forgotten that I had the microphone for the day and so when Hastings took the lead in the 11th minute I patiently waited for the announcement of the opening scorer.  Of course, that announcement should have been made by me.  Fortunately ClubSec Kev was on hand to tell me that Hastings Player/Manager Sean Ray was the scorer.

As if some of the Lewes players had missed the first goal, Hastings decided to rerun it two minutes later, this time leaving N’Diaye unmarked at the far post to double the lead.  The Jungle wasn’t happy but got behind the team, knowing that in Pleatland, 2-0 is the most dangerous scoreline in football.  Breach’s downward header that found the one bone-dry spot on the pitch and bounced over the bar was the best chance the Rooks had in the first half.

Half-time.  Time for announcements and to sample some of the fantastic cakes, entered by the fans in the Great Lewes Bake Off (including the very unusual but delicious Parsnip and Maple Syrup winning entry) whilst the kids played “hit the chicken” penalty shoot out.  The feel good factor around the pitch was still there.  If only we had a slice of luck somewhere.

Just three minutes into the second half and the Hastings keeper landed awkwardly, hurting his knee.  Of course the official stopped play (are you watching Mr. Spain?) and after some lengthy treatment the keeper decided to carry on, obviously immobile and in considerable pain.  Yet not once did Lewes try to take advantage of the situation. The Hastings defenders took a no-nonsense approach to defending which was effective in helping increase our match ball costs.

After ten minutes Cruttwell couldn’t carry on and so he was replaced by substitute Sam Adams (no beer related jokes here please) who seemed to enjoy the banter with the crowd.  Still he was hardly tested as Lewes tried to play the ball through the middle to Godfrey rather than using the width and pace of Brinkhurst and Harding.

With just under 15 minutes to play Crabb broke into the area and went down under the challenge from Ray.  From our angle it could have been given either way but with the referee some way behind play, his view would have been of man playing man rather than the ball.  Beckford stepped up and all of a sudden Lewes were back in the game.  But Hastings stuck to their game plan which was ruthlessly effective.

Eleven minutes of injury time followed but Lewes simply couldn’t break down the Hastings back four.  The final whistle brought some wild celebrations from the Hastings team and some slumped shoulders from the Lewes players.  788 fans, the second biggest of the season at The Pan and the fifth in the division all season deserved more of an Easter treat on a chilly afternoon, and the red and black half went on their way nervously looking at results elsewhere.  Monday’s game away to Bognor Regis Town cannot come soon enough.