Issue Two: This Belongs to All of Us
Mike Mccaffrey · Dugout Diaries
709 downloads. One county. And a publication that belongs to everyone who keeps Sussex football alive.
When we released the first issue of Dugout News, I honestly did not know what to expect. I knew how much work had gone into it. I knew how many late nights, messages, photographs, match reports and last-minute changes were involved. What I did not know was whether people would actually download it.
Well, 709 of you did.
Seven hundred and nine downloads for the first-ever issue of a completely independent Sussex non-league football publication. No enormous marketing budget. No national media machine. No corporate investors telling us what we can and cannot say. Just a group of people who love local football coming together and creating something that represents our game.
I am incredibly proud of that number, but I am even prouder of what sits behind it.
Every download represents somebody who wanted to read about Sussex football. Somebody who cares about the players, managers, volunteers, supporters and clubs operating outside the professional spotlight. Somebody who understands that football does not begin and end with the Premier League.
It lives at grounds where volunteers arrive hours before kick-off. It lives in the clubhouse, behind the goal, inside the tea hut and on the terraces. It belongs to the people marking out pitches, washing kits, selling raffle tickets, running social-media accounts and keeping clubs alive when nobody else is watching.
That is who Dugout News is for.
Issue Two is another step forward. We have listened to the feedback, looked closely at what worked and pushed ourselves to make this edition even stronger. Inside, you can expect more reports, results, opinions, stories and characters from across the Sussex football pyramid. We will celebrate the goals and performances, but we also want to tell the stories that cannot be found in a league table.
That means giving space to the people who make our football what it is. The contributors with genuine knowledge of their clubs. The photographers standing in the rain to capture the moment. The media volunteers trying to post an update while also selling programmes. The supporters travelling across the county and the players going to work on Monday morning after putting everything into ninety minutes on Saturday.
This publication is not being written by people looking down on nonleague football from a comfortable press box. It is being created from inside the dugout, on the touchline and among the supporters.
That matters to me.
Sussex football can occasionally be a funny old place. There are rivalries, arguments and enough committee-room politics to keep Netflix going for another decade. We will not pretend everything is perfect, and anyone who has followed Dugout Diaries knows I am unlikely to suddenly become quiet when something needs saying.
But Issue Two is proof that, when it really matters, this football community can come together.
Clubs have shared our work. Contributors have trusted us with their words. Photographers have supplied brilliant images. Supporters have downloaded the publication and passed it around. People who would normally be competing against one another have helped build something designed to benefit the entire Sussex football community.
That is bigger than any one club, show or individual.
Dugout News is not here to replace the excellent work already being done. It is here to connect it, promote it and give it another platform. We want the smallest clubs to feel just as important as the biggest ones. We want a volunteer at Step 7 to open these pages and see their work treated with the same respect as somebody higher up the pyramid.
Most importantly, I want everybody involved to feel that this publication belongs to them.
We are still learning. We will make mistakes. There will probably be a missing comma somewhere that ruins somebody’s Sunday morning.
Someone will disagree with an opinion, somebody will want more coverage, and another person will tell me their striker’s goal was definitely from 35 yards when the footage shows it was closer to 18. That is non-league football. I would not change it.
What I will promise is that we will keep working, listening and improving. Issue One proved there is an appetite for something fresh. Issue Two is about building on that foundation and showing this was never intended to be a one-off novelty.
To every contributor, photographer, club official, player, manager, volunteer and supporter who helped us: thank you. To every one of the 709 people who downloaded Issue One: you helped turn an idea into something real.
Now it is time to go again.
Welcome to Issue Two of Dugout News. Made in Sussex, built by the non-league community and created for everybody who believes our football deserves to be seen, heard and celebrated.
We are only getting started.
See you in the dugout.
Mike McCaffrey — Dugout Diaries
First published in Dugout News, Issue 002, Sunday 16 August 2026. Republished here in full.
