Tonight's Tinpoticity

[martello]

Not sure I've ever started a thread on here, so hope I'm posting it in the right place!

Tonight's tinpoticity is Eastbourne United Association v Eastbourne Town in the marvellously-monikered Royal Ulster Rifles (RUR) Charity Cup. It's behind the Sussex Senior Cup and John O'Hara League Cup in importance, but somehow is still going strong.

Nothing exciting in the fact its an Eastbourne derby as the two teams meet twice in the league anyway but it'll be an interesting game. United are fifth, pre-season title favourites Town in a disappointing eighth. Both teams will feature a host of players with connections to their more illustrious neighbours Eastbourne Borough. Town manager Ady Colwell used to manage Borough's reserves, and his team features ex-Borough players Danny Simmonds, Peter Featherstone, Liam Baitup and Paul Stevens (all with varying degrees of Southern League and Conference South experience) and former Spurs and Brighton midfielder John Piercy also plays for them.

Their very tinpot website is here: www.eastbournetownfc.com/index.html

United's ground, The Oval, just a stone's throw from the seafront...

[malxscfc]

Good luck to all who were involved, martello, but I hope you haven't forgotten us little lads from Wiltshire visiting you tomorrow....

Hope we'll get the chance to meet up, as fellow Tinpotters. Me and DaveT will be there, as well as many of the usual Salisbury bunch.

Seeya tomorrow!

[medibot]

I heard it was 2-0 to United and most tinpot. Marvellous stuff

[ambersalamander]

Ahem! That's UNITED ASSOCIATION to you!

But yes, it was 2-0 to whatever you want to call them, and quite spectacularly tinpot. I was particularly impressed by the tinpot tea bar, which was reminiscent of walking into an old fashioned and slightly run down cafe on a weekday morning In fact, it really reminded me of the one at Uxbridge, where everything is from the seventies, furniture, crockery and all, and I was commenting thus to Martello when we both simultaneously spotted a baffling, completely random map of Middlesex on the wall! "A-ha!" sez I, "perhaps it really is Uxbridge's tea bar mysteriously transported to Sussex!" Maybe all VERY tinpot clubs are so tinpot that they have to share the same piece of space-time for their tea bar, and they necessarily have the same insane lady working behind the counter, which may account for why we had to queue so long for our crunchy burgers. I liked their bar as well, apart from the lack of beer and the Carsh*ton pennant next to the vodka

It started out by being a bit of a nothing game, but gradually became completely mediocre before half time, re-surfacing after the break as a lacklustre competition and finally graduating into a lifeless performance from both sides Actually, that's not quite fair. I flatter them. Hehe! No not really- it wasn't that bad at all, just bloody freezing. I thought the crowd wasn't too bad...in fact we had to move cos I couldn't see through the throngs of eastbourners, although I'm sure martello would delight in telling you that they had to cut the grass before I could see the game

Martello said with suitable enthusiasm, "This game has got 0-0 written all over it." "Don't get SO excited," I thought, "they might worry that we're enjoying ourselves." He then had a thought: "Oh God, please don't let it go into extra time... I'll have enough trouble watching 90 minutes of this!!!" I said "Nah, you wait- it won't be 0-0. In fact I think it'll be 1-1 "

I was quite impressed with United's, sorry, United Association's (martello tells me that you're not allowed to call them that) number 6 and number 10, whose names sadly escape me in the heat of the moment. Both were nippy, enthusiastic and skilled on the ball. The game sort of hotted up a bit (from freezing to lukewarm!) in about the last 20 minutes of the first half. "That no. 10 is GAGGING for a goal," I observed. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm was such that he was simply refusing to take his time, and ended up walloping the ball in a vaguely goalward direction as often as possible, but not with particular accuracy. But I did say "You wait- he'll get one sooner or later." Unfortunately, at that point martello had to leave the viewing area for a few minutes, during which time our man scored the goal we'd been waiting for ;D

At half time, we went for our crunchy burgers, queuing for which took most of the second half or so it seemed. We decided to sit in their rather odd stand (no chairs, just big steps made to look like benches!) and the food wasn't too bad- six out of ten, perhaps. I quite like them crunchy; I'm not complaining.

The second half started much as the first had ended, and ended as the first had begun. I think martello was too busy being cold to appreciate it, so I gave him some hugs to keep him warm in a tinpot way The second goal was not particularly memorable, in fact all I can remember is a bit of a scramble. I was very tired after all.

Town didn't really turn up to be honest- if I were them I'd want to concentrate on the league, but it was bloody freezing and very tinpot. They couldn't be arsed quite frankly, and United ASSOCIATION fully deserved their win.

It was tinpot