We first played today’s opponents on 15th October 1921, when they were known as Eastbourne Royal Engineers Old Comrades. The match, which was played at their new permanent home of the Lynchmere Ground, was an FA Amateur Cup 2nd qualifying round tie and we lost 2-1, Eric Hanmore scoring our goal. They were new to the Sussex County League that season and we would meet them in league competition each season until 1928.

We met in the FA Cup for the first time on 22nd September 1923, and won 2-0 at the Sports Ground in a preliminary round match. On 12th April 1924 we suffered our largest margin of defeat in these meetings, losing 5-1 at Eastbourne in a County League fixture.

In the 1926-27 season we played these opponents, who were now known as Eastbourne Old Comrades (having changed their name in 1924) five times, but the first encounter (an FA Amateur Cup match) was abandoned at half-time because of a waterlogged pitch.

In 1928 they changed their name again, this time to Eastbourne Comrades, and left to join the Spartan League. This meant no more league meetings for a while, but that season did see our first Sussex Senior Cup encounter, when we won 2-1 away in the 2nd round on 9th February 1929.

Eastbourne Comrades resigned from the Spartan League in 1932 and rejoined the Sussex County League in 1935, and we then played each other in that competition until 1948, except for the war years (1939-40 to 1945-46, inclusive). On 13th February 1937 we achieved our largest winning margin in these matches, the home County League fixture finishing 12-0 in our favour.

In 1947 our opponents moved to their current Oval ground in Princes Park, but we did not play there that season as the away league match was switched to Woodside Road; our first match at the Oval was a friendly played on 5th March 1949, which we won 3-1. In 1948 we moved to the Corinthian League and only met each other in cup matches for the next two decades.

On 11th May 1957 we faced each other in the Sussex Senior Cup final for the only time. Our opponents had by this time changed their name to Eastbourne United and were also in their first season playing in the Metropolitan League. The final, played at the Goldstone Ground in Hove, ended 2-1 to us.

The only other time we met at a neutral venue was the Senior Cup semi-final of 1962-63, which was played at the Dripping Pan in Lewes.

Eastbourne United joined the Athenian League in 1964, a year after us, and we played each other in Division 1 in 1967-68. Because we were relegated at the end of the season, the next league meetings did not happen until 1972-73, after we had gained promotion back to Division 1. We then met each year until both becoming founder-members of Isthmian League Division 2 in 1977.

Our first Isthmian League meeting was on 30th August 1977, when we won 1-0 at the Oval. That season also saw our only encounter in the FA Vase, United winning the 2nd round tie 1-0 at Woodside Road.

In 1981-82 we played each other six times, including (on 29th September) the only time we met in the Isthmian League Cup (we won 3-0 away in the 2nd round tie), and our Sussex Senior Cup tie went to two replays before we progressed. This was the last season that we met in a league match, because we were promoted as Division 2 champions at the end of the season and United were always in a lower division than us before they returned to the Sussex County League in 1992.

Our last competitive meeting came in the Sussex Floodlight Cup in 1992-93. The two legs of this 1st round tie were played either side of our FA Cup 4th qualifying round match at Cheltenham Town, so a mostly reserve side was fielded at the Oval on 20th October and drew 2-2. A full-strength side played in the home leg the following week and won 11-0, goals coming from Paul Boxall (3), Gary Brooke (3), Richard Knight (2), Dave Stevens, Darren Freeman and Martin Lambert.

The latest match between us was on 23rd July 2019, when we won a friendly 6-1 at Woodside Road. Our opponents had merged with Shinewater Association several years earlier and were now going under their current name of Eastbourne United Association.

A summary of our results against today’s opponents is shown below:

Totals exclude the abandoned FA Amateur Cup match from 1926-27