No senior team, meanwhile masters grade thrives

by Steve McMorran

Eastbourne Football Club chairman Mike Andrews believes the club’s inability to field a senior team this season while adding a third masters team may reflect changing demographics in Eastbourne.

Andrews says finding enough young players to sustain a senior team has been increasingly difficult in recent seasons and the club only just managed to scrape together a senior side in its 50th anniversary season last year.

But at the same time the masters grades for players aged 35 and over are booming with as many 60 players signed up for the coming season.

Andrews believes that may reflect the effect of rising house prices which might have made Eastbourne a less viable place to live for younger people who in the past would have sustained senior teams in football and other sports.

He said it was only the hard work of committee member Carlton McRae, whose sons swelled the numbers of the senior team last year, that allowed the club to field a team in 2018. In recent years the seniors had faced a battle for survival, often only just managing to pull together numbers which kept the team afloat.

At the same time the Eastbourne senior team had faced a recent battle to avoid relegation. It could have been relegated last year but Capital Football agreed, as Eastbourne was a one-team club, to allow it to remain in Capital division three in its 50th season.

Again, every effort was made to field a team this year but to no avail.

“Up until two or three days ago we were in communication with Petone and Stop Out about getting some extra players but sadly it didn’t pan out,” Andrews said.

“We actually had only three players registered at the time of registration closing.

“I understand there might have been a few players waiting in the wings but it didn’t work out like last year when we were scratching a team together at the last moment.”

Andrews is hopeful that Eastbourne will again field a senior team but is worried that in missing a season the club may “lack a bit of credibility” among some players.

But he said the club had done everything in its power to find players.

“In my opinion it may just be the changing demographics of Eastbourne.”

Andrews said the continuing growth of the masters teams was an overwhelmingly positive trend.

“I’m astonished at the number of players they’ve got to choose from.”

Eastbourne has a competitive teams in the Capital masters two division this year, in a season that begins on April 7, and hopes eventually to gain promotion to division one.

Meanwhile, longtime Eastbourne junior organiser Sola Freeman has been elected to the board of Capital Football.