Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 10:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Nandhra 77)

Durand sent off 36 (2nd Booking)

PEACEHAVEN & TELESCOMBE 4 (Wiltshire 34 Tighe 41 Downey-Powell 58 Agihotra 62)

Att 223 at Withdean Stadium, Brighton

Entry & Programme £8

If you take the groundhopping mantra “Everywhere once” literally, I’d have swerved the Withdean Stadium. I visited back in 2001 when Brighton & Hove Albion used here as a lifeboat between the Goldstone Ground, the Priestfield, and the Amex. I had to pretend to be a Darlington fan to get a ticket; all the home areas were sold out, and I perched on a bank of green temporary seats while Brighton won what’s now called League 2. How times change….

The irony is that a lot of those temporary seats remained in Sussex once the Albion moved out; you can still use them at the likes of Newhaven and Whitehawk! But that understates the history of the Withdean. Originally it was built for tennis even hosting a Davis Cup tie between Great Britain and New Zealand in 1939, before being rebuilt for athletics in 1955 and later was the home training track of 1980’s Olympian Steve Ovett. As an aside you can groundhop the track of his great rival Seb Coe- just visit Enfield Town!

Oddly the first football at the Withdean wasn’t association rules- it was American Football as in 1985 Brighton B52’s were routed 76-0 by City College of San Francisco Rams. That was watched by a scarcely believable 12,500 – even Albion could only manage a maximum of 8,300 even with all that scaffolding!

Football as this blog understands it first arrived in 1989 when Withdean FC, later Withdean 2000, started playing here winning the Combined Counties League in 2003, Incidentally that meant finish two places above AFC Wimbledon who were in their debutant season. Withdean folded soon after following the withdrawal of their backer, so these days Brighton Electricity and AFC Varndeanians are tenants here.

Varndeanians date back to 1920 when Secondary Old Boys were formed. They were open to all secondary schools former pupils but since there were a large contingent of former Varndeanian pupils in the club changed to Old Varndeanians in 1929 and AFC Varndeanians in 2015 when the club entered the Sussex County League.

The Withdean as it is now does give Varndeanians a few issues. There are no concourses so everything they wanted to do in terms of merchandise and catering had to be carried from the clubhouse to the other end of the pitch. It was quite the undertaking, and one I hope was profitable; certainly the samosas were delicious!

On the pitch the hosts never recovered from losing Julian Durand to two bookings. Peacehaven & Telscombe have fairly recent history in the Isthmian League and looked like a side that might challenge to return there. But more than anything else this was highly satisfying morning out. Or in my terms as good a revisit as you’ll ever see.

Dedicated to the memory of Peter Ford, groundhopper and proud Yorkshireman. Rest in peace