Dulwich Hamlet bring Eastbourne Borough back to earth

In any game, the final scoreline does not lie, and the record will show that Dulwich took all three points. But their 2-1 victory disguises the truth of a game dominated by Borough, but nicked from them by a Hamlet smash-and-grab operation.

In a sense, the whole match was over in the first fifteen minutes. By that point, Eastbourne could literally have scored five goals, but Hamlet had scored two.

The Sports had produced a phenomenal opening blitz, denied only by home goalkeeper Charlie Grainger, whose four outstanding saves – plus a couple more near-miss efforts – had kept the Dulwich goal intact. And as the men in red powered eagerly forward, an early goal seemed inevitable.

In the second minute James Ferry and Dean Cox set Charley Kendall away on the left, but his ball into the box was cleared for a corner. Then a six-man move finished with Cox’s volley, curling goalwards but brilliantly clawed away from the very top corner by Grainger.

Next, Greg Luer created his own chance with an incisive run down the right, but floated his goal attempt just too long. Then Cox seized on a midfield turnover to play in Kendall with an inch-perfect through ball, but the keeper advanced to narrow the angle and bravely saved his fierce shot.

Within a minute, Grainger had conjured another remarkable save – once again from Cox, who fizzed a torpedo of a shot from Chris Whelpdale’s knockdown, but was denied at the foot of the left post. Seconds later Cox – who had achieved more in ten minutes than some players manage in ninety – tried another 20-yard strike, but it swerved past the far post.

To this point, Franco Ravizzoli had still not touched the ball. But on 10 minutes Hamlet won a rather soft free-kick, wide on their right touchline. It was played up the line and then set up for Ruben Sammut's low shot, pushed out by Ravizzoli but drilled intothe net by Danny Mills, a man who has scored against Borough for four different opposing clubs.

Both shaken and stirred, the Sports resumed their assaults on the home goal. An enterprising Kai Innocent overlapped on the left and swung in a long effort that was dipping into the top corner until Grainger stretched to touch it out for a corner.

But barely a minute later, Hamlet’s second attack of the night brought their second goal. A corner on the left was played in short to McGregor, whose shot was deflected into goal by Reise Allassani, just four yards out and looking suspiciously offside. A VAR review would have ruled the goal out for a leading elbow or a stretched toecap, but this is non-league, where instant decisions are all that we have….