Select Here for a Match Report by Ian Townsend on a great match for Steyning Town Mens First Team. Ian describes the match and also thoughts about our town and Club. It is well worth a read. It was an exciting night at the Peter Humphreys Memorial Stadium,
The town of Steyning may include a football club that bears its name, but in truth it’s barely a town at all.
It has a fabulous High Street with some fine local independent shops, sits in the shadow of the beautiful South Downs, and is located only a fifteen minute drive from the coast, but it has little more than five thousand inhabitants which makes it smaller than other settlements across West Sussex which are still described as villages. It also has- as fans from sides across Pitching In Isthmian South East are about to find out (if they haven’t already)- public transport designed by the devil; a bus to Shoreham every hour and that’s your lot. Blame Doctor Beeching, who closed the local station a few months before England won the World Cup.
And about our Club:
Steyning can hardly be expected to be a footballing hotbed. Not only is it rather a small place, but it has both Premier League Brighton and Hove Albion and National League side Worthing within relatively few miles competing for their locals. And yet…a town of little more than five thousand inhabitants has a football club with more than five hundred registered players, across senior men and women, youth, junior, girls and veterans sides. If you do the maths, that’s rather astonishing.
It’s easy to see what attracts all of those locals to the club. The work that has been done here over the past few years stands out. A decent 3G surface, new changing facilities, new toilet facilities, additional seating, a new committee room, new electronic turnstiles, and all of this added to an already comfortable bar and a fabulous refreshment kiosk- the Barrowmen may not have a great deal of money but they’ve spent it wisely, and their volunteers have backed that up with unlimited elbow grease and commitment. Some clubs throw what money they have at their team, and Steyning have had their fair share of on-field success over the last few years, but there are no highly-paid superstars here. Success, instead, smacks of hard work and commitment- and it was certainly those qualities which won them this match.
When we reach the end of the season there’s every likelihood that Faversham will be involved in the Play Offs, or perhaps will have done even better. You’d have to say that the odds of Steyning joining them in the promotion race must remain long, despite this result. But, on the balance of what we watched, the Barrowmen and their supporters have every reason to be optimistic.
Their future appears to be as bright as their new paintwork.
