Simon Leslie column: At every low point, an uplift is imminent – in football and life

It is amazing what happens when you have a referee who officiates with calmness and control.

No silliness, letting the game run, and ignoring all the antics from both teams. I was waiting for the chant "Can we have you every week?”.

With every cloud, there is always a silver lining, with every disappointment, opportunities are waiting to surface and that is what happened on over the weekend.

Our social team posted Pierce Bird’s cracking goal from the Maidstone game, and what followed was incredible.

All the major footballing sites picked it up and some 50 million, yes 50 million, views followed.

We were getting messages and exposure all around the world.

Borough are top of the National League standings for having the most followers on Instagram and TikTok – building on a promise we made at the outset: we would tell our story to our fans home and abroad.

These platforms give us a global footprint of supporters. So, if you are facing challenges or difficult times, please remind yourself, something good is about to happen.

It’s a philosophy I’ve held in business and am bringing into sport. When something goes wrong, something better is about to emerge.

It was also so good to listen to Barry Hearn last week as he visited the club and waxed lyrically about sport and business, and reminded many in the room how important the business of sport is.

It’s vital for a club to be the heart of the community, and the lovely messages I’ve had about how important this club has been in difficult times for many have been wonderful.

Every person in the room applauded the talk, and we will be having another fascinating speaker in the coming weeks. We also raised over £1,000 for local charity You Raise Me Up. I want to thank everyone for their generosity.

We lost the bid to take over the sports centre at Meads, but I have reached out to Wave Leisure to offer our support and hope they do a good job at looking after the community as we promised we would.

Now on to tomorrow (Sat Apr 6), a huge day for football in Eastbourne as we host Weymouth. We need to top the 2,200 crowd we had on Good Friday. The energy the crowd brings is our 12th man. So bring as many with you and come and support our great escape.

I want to say a special thank-you to Adam, Stuart, Andy, Matt, Stef and Aurie, who as a management team have got the ship back on calmer waters and sailing to safety.

Also on a sailing theme, I’m pleased to announce Norwegian Cruise Line will remain as our sponsors for next season. Huge thanks to them, let’s enjoy a great football team and great cruising.