Lewes

The Dripping Pan sits in a natural amphitheatre below the Sussex Downs, its pitch dug into ground once used for salt production and, before that, as a Norman defensive earthwork; the slope means spectators on one bank look down on play from a height rare in non-league football. Lewes has held it since 1885, long enough that the ground's shape has become the club's calling card more than any result achieved on it.

What distinguishes the club now has nothing to do with the pitch's dimensions. Facing insolvency in 2010, Lewes was bought for £1 by six supporters and turned into a community-owned trust, removing it from the reach of any single benefactor. Seven years later that structure produced Equality FC: from 2017 the men's and women's first teams have drawn on the same playing budget and been paid the same wages, a first anywhere in professional or semi-professional football. The single season in the Conference National, reached after winning the Conference South in 2007–08 before an immediate relegation, reads now as a minor entry beside that.

Terry Parris scored 350 goals for the club, a tally built up long before either the buyout or Equality FC, and it still stands as the reference point whenever a Lewes forward is judged against the past.

Eastbourne Borough provide the derby that matters most, the two grounds close enough along the Sussex coast that away days need no more than a short run down the A27; Whitehawk and Chichester City fill in the rest of a rivalry list that stays local rather than historic.