Daggers Drawn!

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21st April 2012

Sorry about the headline, I couldn’t help it. Opportunities to pretend I’m a features writer for the Sun don’t come along very often (and thank the Lord for that).  I’ll think of a few more cliches in a minute, I wouldn’t want it to be lonely.

Well, three coaches set off in convoy from the Broadfield Stadium at midday. Filled with optimism, chewy sweets and dancing Ken. Not that I’m suggesting Ken filled the coach- he’s now a shadow of his former self since Paul Prendergast- Captain Haddock- borrowed his beard. Perhaps we should launch an appeal- buy Travel Ken a new beard? A Beardathon, perhaps? Waffling? Yes, obviously. I will get around to talking about the football, but there isn’t a great deal to say. In honesty, it wasn’t very good.

We arrived in Dagenham shortly after one o clock, after finding the M25 entirely trouble free (there are a few words that you didn’t expect to see in the same sentence). The natives were friendly enough, but although we’ve travelled to a few places this season when it would have been a positive boon to have a couple of spare hours before kick off, today wasn’t one of them. The nearest we came to pre match entertainment was watching the locals park their cars. 

Inside the ground, I decided to buy crisps. “A bag of ready salted please.” 

“We don’t have any. We only have mystery flavour”.

“Ok. A bag of those please.”

“Which flavour would you like?”

  I had a bacon roll. Though I’m not really sure what flavour bacon I got.

We were strategically placed along the side of the pitch. The kind of terrace where both corner flags on your side become a mystery all of their own. You know they’re there, but you can’t see them at all. Think Kingsmeadow with nicer home fans. Luckily it didn’t really matter that we had a restricted view, because we played restricted football. 

Charlie took his goal well. Dagenham scored a cracking equaliser, but it was a poor goal to concede as we let him have far too much time to line the shot up. In the second half, we huffed and puffed but didn’t really create very much – though we did have a couple of chances which might have made the game safe. The referee- I don’t like moaning about referees, I may be fat but I’m not Steve Evans in disguise- was awful, unfortunately. Apparently he’s a Major in the logistics corps. Major Disaster. A big change from last week, when we had Captain Calamity. Daggers played better than their position would suggest, and their fans went wild at the final whistle as that point makes them safe from the drop. Hopefully we won’t need to play them again next season, anyway, so good luck to them.

The best part of today was the result at Kingsmeadow. It isn’t often I want Wimbledon to win, but I made an exception- though I had no confidence in them at all. After their display at the Broadfield last week Torquay must have been dreadful to lose. But lose they did, we go a point clear of them in third place, and the world is a slightly more wonderful place.

Right, on to next Saturday. A truly massive game- both for us and Hereford. Three points and Torquay losing to Crewe, and up we go. Fingers crossed. See you all at the Broadfield.

Author

Ian Townsend

Ian Townsend

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