“I Have Never Been More Ambitious”: Simon Leslie on the FA Cup, Fan Support, and the Future of Priory Lane

Coffee with Simon Leslie

Eastbourne Life Editor Peter Lindsey sits down with Eastbourne Borough chairman Simon Leslie to talk football, fans, investment, the Sporting Village, the cost of running a football club and why he believes the best days are still ahead.

Peter: Simon, let’s start with the football. It hasn’t quite been the start you wanted, has it?

Simon Leslie: No, it was a good start, and then we struggled a bit. We have spent a lot of money putting together a very good squad and I want us to win every week. But I also don’t think the results tell the whole story. We have played some really good football, had lots of possession and simply haven’t turned enough of it into goals.

It’s changing, there is too much quality in this group for it not to, and I still think somebody is going to get a very good beating when everything clicks. This group is only seven games together and have had a few injuries as well.

Peter: Then came Whitehawk in the FA Cup. Did that feel important?

Simon: Hugely. Not just because we won, although obviously that helps! It was the whole feeling of the afternoon. It was a nightmare clash with Brighton at home, so both clubs probably lost a few supporters, but those who came were fantastic. The sun was shining, people were singing and there was just this really positive energy around the place.

Hearing Steve King’s name being sung was definitely special. Players, staff, management and supporters suddenly felt completely in unison. I got goosebumps standing amongst it. That is what football should feel like, and if we can recreate that regularly at Priory Lane, we will win a lot of football matches.

Peter: You’ve been quite outspoken about the supporters recently. Do you regret any of it?

Simon: I don’t regret being transparent and honest, but I never want the noise around a small number of people to overshadow the overwhelming majority of our supporters, who are brilliant. There is a coup mentality at a football club, a few making a lot of noise overshadowing, the majority.

I received lots of feedback after what I wrote, including from people who disagreed with me, and that’s absolutely fine. Football without opinions would be incredibly boring. My point was really about respect and about everyone understanding what it takes to keep a football club like this moving forward.

Whitehawk was the perfect response. 

Peter: You have said the club costs around £150,000 a month to operate. Does the average supporter understand just how expensive this place is to run?

Simon: Probably not, and actually I don’t think they should have to. People come here to watch football, see their friends and enjoy themselves, not worry about our gas bill or how much a box of burgers costs.

But when I talk about roughly £150,000 a month, people perhaps imagine that is all being spent on the men’s first team. It isn’t. We are running a much bigger operation now. The club supports the men’s first team, the Under 18s, the women’s first team and our events team. We now have the padel operation and our new simulator centre will be opening shortly. There are more people using this site, more people working here and much more happening seven days a week, which is exactly what we wanted to create.

At the same time, the basic cost of running everything has gone through the roof. Our electricity and gas costs have roughly doubled. The raw materials for something as simple as burgers and chips cost considerably more than they used to. Bread and eggs are more expensive, beer is more expensive, insurance is more expensive and practically everything we buy seems to cost more.

We have done our best not to simply pass all of that onto supporters. We have tried to keep ticket prices keen and keep food and drink affordable without huge increases because I don’t want coming to Borough to become an expensive day out for a family. There is always a balance between what something costs us and what it is fair to ask supporters to pay.

The encouraging part is that we are beginning to build new sources of income rather than just new costs. Padel is bringing completely new people through the gates, our events business is growing and the simulator centre will add another reason for people to come here throughout the week.

The ambition isn’t to have a football club that costs £150,000 every month and then work out who is going to write the cheque. The ambition is to build a Sporting Village capable of generating enough money across football, sport, hospitality, food, drink, events and entertainment to support itself.

If we can achieve that, then instead of every new pound being needed to plug a hole, more of those pounds can go into the things supporters actually want to see: better players, better stands, better facilities and a better football club.

Peter: The transformation of the old bowls hall into padel caused plenty of controversy. Do you still believe it was the right decision?

Simon: Completely, and the numbers are beginning to speak for themselves. The old bowls hall barely attracted 100 regular users. Less than four months after opening the padel club, we welcomed our 1,000th player.

Some people are completely addicted now and playing every week. More importantly, we’re bringing people onto this site who previously had no reason to come to Eastbourne Borough.

I understand nostalgia and I understand why people become attached to facilities, but my responsibility is to the future of the whole club. Football alone will not make Borough self sufficient. The Sporting Village can.

Peter: So what exactly is the vision for the Sporting Village?

Simon: A place that is alive seven days a week rather than just for a few hours when the men are playing at home.

Football is obviously at the heart of it, but around that we can have padel, simulators, bars, events, community activities, and other sports and leisure facilities. Every successful part of that ecosystem makes the football club stronger.

We’ve already put a beautiful new pitch in and spent more than £300,000 improving the stadium and facilities over the summer, but we’re nowhere near finished. I want new stands, better facilities and more reasons for people across Eastbourne to come here every week.

When the architects finish the drawings for Borough Quarter, we will share them. I think that is when people will really start to see how all these individual pieces fit together.

Peter: You talk about new stands, new facilities and making the Sporting Village bigger. Can you personally keep funding that level of ambition?

Simon: No, and I think it is important to be completely open about that. What we are trying to build here is ambitious and it is expensive, and if we really want to take Borough and the Sporting Village to where I believe they can go, we need deeper pockets than mine.

The encouraging news is that other people are beginning to see what we see. I can tell you that we have secured some new investment from San Antonio, Texas, which we will formally announce in the next couple of weeks once the ink is dry. I don’t want to say too much until everything is completed, but I think it is a really exciting development for the club and another indication that people from well beyond Eastbourne are beginning to recognise the potential of what we are building here.

And we need more.

I have invested heavily because I believe passionately in the opportunity, but the objective was never to build something that depended forever on how deep my pockets were. That isn’t a sustainable business model and ultimately it isn’t good for the football club either.

We have 11 acres here and an opportunity to create something genuinely unusual in non league football. Doing all of that properly requires capital. New stands cost money, improving facilities costs money and creating new revenue generating businesses costs money before they start generating revenue themselves.

So yes, we absolutely want more investment, but I don’t simply want people to give us money to pay this month’s football wages. I want investors who understand the longer term vision and want to help us build an asset and a sporting destination that can eventually support the football club rather than the football club constantly needing to be supported.

Peter: Does a good FA Cup run actually make much difference?

Simon: Absolutely. People naturally focus on the romance of the Cup, and I love all of that, but there is a very practical side too. Extra games, bigger crowds and prize money all create revenue that we can reinvest.

We’ve now got Windsor & Eton at home on the 19th, which is a lovely draw. We won’t underestimate them for one second because the FA Cup has been teaching football clubs that lesson for about 150 years, but another home cup afternoon is something everyone should be excited about.

If we can have a proper run and generate some extra money, I would love to see that money helping us accelerate some of the improvements around the ground.

Peter: What about the women’s team? How important are they to your plans?

Simon: Massively important. They drew with Bromley, beat Millwall and battled incredibly hard against Sutton with a depleted side and were desperately unlucky to lose 3-2. They played remarkably well and there is a lot to be excited about. All these are much bigger clubs.

When I talk about building Borough, I mean the whole club. I don’t want one successful men’s team with everything else attached to it as an afterthought. I want the women progressing, our Under 18s developing, our community programmes growing and more boys and girls seeing this place as their football club. We need more players to come through our pathway.

All boats need to rise.

Peter: What would success look like to you in five years?

Simon: Walking into a packed ground with a team competing at a much higher level, fantastic facilities around it and a Sporting Village full of people every day of the week.

I’d love 2,000 people regularly coming to watch Borough. I’d love kids growing up wanting to wear a Borough shirt – by the way, that’s happening and in our partnership with Octopus, we will be donating more kids shirts. I’d love the football operation to be supported by profitable businesses around it rather than constantly needing someone’s money.

Most of all, I want Eastbourne to be genuinely proud of this place.

Peter: You’ve owned businesses for a long time. Is owning a football club what you expected?

Simon: Yes and no!

It is probably the most irrational business in the world. In a normal company, if something isn’t working you change it and people generally understand why. In football you move a chair six feet and someone will tell you their grandfather sat there in 1974 and you’ve destroyed the soul of the club. 

But that’s also why it is special. People care about football clubs in a way they don’t care about normal businesses. I’ve learned a huge amount about that since coming here, sometimes the hard way.

It is infuriating, expensive, emotional and occasionally completely bonkers, but then you see your players playing in the football league and get lovely messages that we were part of that journey. Fletcher, Yahaya, Jason, Courtney, Ollie all appreciate the support we gave them. There are so many lovely stories, many for personal reasons I can’t share, but we get reminders every week, of the good that we do.

Peter: Finally, what would you say to Borough supporters reading this?

Simon: Keep coming, and bring more people with you. Bring your family, bring your mates, have your Christmas party here, come and play padel, try the new simulator centre when it opens, have a beer, watch the football and make some noise about Borough. The more people who use this place, the more we can put back into making it better.

Criticise me when you think I am wrong and criticise the football when it isn’t good enough. That’s part of the deal and I would never want to take that passion out of football. But let’s also recognise when something good is happening, celebrate it and get behind it. Whitehawk showed what happens when the players, staff and supporters are all pulling in the same direction, and I want much more of that feeling.

There is a huge amount still to do and we will undoubtedly make mistakes along the way, but I have never been more ambitious about what Eastbourne Borough can become. This isn’t just about building a better football team. It is about creating a place that people in Eastbourne actually want to spend time in, whether there is a match on or not.

When the architects finish the drawings for Borough Quarter, we will share them with everyone. I think that will be the moment when people really begin to understand what we are going to create here. I want people to look at it and think, “I want to hang out there.”

That, ultimately, is the vision. A great football club at the heart of a place that is busy seven days a week, that the town is proud of, that generates enough money to support itself and that people genuinely enjoy being part of.

So keep coming, keep singing, keep telling us when we get things wrong, but most importantly, keep bringing people with you.

We are only just getting started.