“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us” sang the Sparks in 1974 and thirty five years later the same could be said for the presence of two offbeat football travel blogs. Since our first match up back in November 2008 at Lewes, European Football Weekends and our good selves here at TBIR have entertained the nation. We have done a few joint trips such as Welling United and the Blue Square Premier play off final at Wembley as well as a couple of memorable Twenty20 World Cup game and we continue to live in a symiotic way. So with the new season now upon us we thought we would take the challenge to the next level. We thought we would get someone else to fight it out for us.
So back in July Mr Last, from EFW came up with the ideal of sponsoring a player at his home team Lewes. The initial idea was that I would find a player at a competing club and sponsor him and we would then go head to head. But do you realise how difficult it is to give some clubs money? Bromley FC (owned and managed by Mark Goldberg, the man who spectacularly blew at fortune at Crystal Palace) wanted £150 to sponsor a player, whilst Welling United, Bishops Stortford and Dover must obviously have so much money that they could not be bothered to answer my email offering them cash. So I reverted to Plan B which was also to sponsor a Lewes player and we would see which one performed the best over the season.
Danny, on behalf of EFW, had first pick and he chose 19 year old new signing Sam Crabb. The youngest of three brothers (in fact his two brothers still play for Eastbourne Borough and were featured back in March in the game against Kettering Town). Sam had a great pre-season knocking in goals against Carshalton Athletic, Worthing and Eastbourne Town and hopes are high for this season in the Blue Square South. So I had to come up with a player to match….Step forward TBIR’s player of choice Ryan Storrie. Ryan is just 18 years old but has broken into the first team squad after some excellent performances for the youth team.
The competition is simple…..2 points for a starting place, 1 point for an appearance as a substitute, 5 points for an assist and a magic 10 points per goal. We will create a special league table on the blog for everyone to follow, but for now after just two games the scores are…..(drum roll)…
Ryan Storrie 3 (1 start, 1 substitute appearance)
Sam Crabb 9 (2 starts and 1 assist)
The Ball is Round 
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