As with pretty much every game it was the usual
While Champ was severely struggling to drink his pints (probably doesn't help that he drinks the vile brand of piss that is strongbow), my Stella's were flowing down like Martyn Mccgarrigle on one of his mates girlfriends. It helps that I can rarely be arsed to go out on Friday evenings anymore.
But overall it was a pretty low-key pre-match drinking session. It took a long while for the next Dover fans to join us. Dad and Uncle John eventually did, the latter who was making an appearance at a home game for the first time in a while. Champ's father-in-law Mark Winter eventually made an appearance, as did Phil Smith, Jared and Andy Lucey. The most suprising appearance though was in the form of Rob James, a Dover exile now living in Spain. While I'm sure he enjoyed his rare visit to Crabble I don't think he would have particularly of missed the English weather.
But yeah, a pretty non-eventful pre match shenaghians from my hazy memory. I recall Bryan Hall coming in and flogging us all a pair of gloves for £1.25, which included a finger-less pair inside the main gloves. They certainly did the trick and I didn't take my pair off all day, despite them making me look moderately more of a twat than I already do.
The OE have recently acquired a new puppy which has been given a rather masculine name; Diesel. Call me a melt but he is rather cute and sumptious so I'll share a picture with you from my dreadful excuse of a camera phone;
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| Woof, Woof. |
So about twenny past two we jumped into Lucey Andy's motor for a lift up to the ground, as we are too lazy to make the ten minute walk. As usual, we dodged the stewards requests and drove round to the other side of the car-park for a quicker walk into the ground. LADS.
This enabled time for another jar of lager in the Centre Spot. I always like making room for one in the clubhouse, even if I don't think its a great venue to be drinking in. It always gives an opportunity to speak to other Dover fans. One of them was actually in fact Russell, who had driven to the game with him being on under-the-thumb-duties with it being his girlfriend's birthday. Fair enough.
Also had a good chin-wag with Reginald Harris, whom is fastly looking to earn himself the winner of my prestigous 'Dover fan of the season' award, as he agreed to give me a lift to Dover from my Herne Bay home on Boxing Day. Absolute fucking star that bloke is!!
Right, I'm bored now so I'm going to start discussing the small matter of the football game; our home fixture with fellow Kentish side Bromley. Bromley are one of those clubs that I'm just so apathetic about either way. They have hardly any support at home or when they come to Crabble but I don't mind them nonetheless. Although one thing I wasn't pleased about was them changing ends on the toss. Its getting really fucking tedious now having to walk round at the last second. I do prefer kicking off towards the town-end but I'd like to know in advance.
So I had literally just finished walking round to the town-end when James Walker smashed the ball into the onion-sack from just outside the box. It was an excellent goal from a player I really did not expect to scoring from long distances. Unfortunately it was a really sparsely populated Crabble who were there to witness it and the further 3 goals that would fly in within the next 30 minutes. A lowly 625 passed through the turnstiles. Although I expected a small crowd with our poor form, freezing weather and Christmas nearby all taken into consideration, I was still dissapointed nonetheless. It was very spacious on the terraces.
Fortunately though, those of us that were there to witness it were in good spirits and in good noise.
We'd only have to wait another ten minutes until the net was bulging again. Georgeous George fired in a well-struck half-volley on the edge of the area after a flick from James Walker in a goal that was arguably better than the first, marking his first goal since our 3-2 win at Chelmsford in early September. What a way to break your duck!
We then endured a short spell of Bromley pressure although the offered nothing that would have Ruiz paricularly skidding his pants. Instead, we'd grab our third on. O the 27 minute mark. George Purcell intecepted a woeful, laughable Bromley pass accross the back and ran into the box before cooly finishing with a strike that found the bottom left-corner.
While we were all still scratching our heads in delight thinking "where the fuck has this come from?" we ended up going 4-0 up just past the half hour mark.
Purcell received the ball on the right-hand side of the box and cut inside one of their defenders before completing his hat-trick by wrong-footing the hapless Tommy Forecast in goal. Tommy hasn't particularly had good time against us this season; he condeded four against us at Thurrock this season which led to some lame jokes by Alex Wilshaw calling him "Tommy four-past".
While Bromley were pretty woeful defensively we went into the break four goals to the good thanks to some clinical finishing. Rob Gilman couldn't hahttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6509144701588090047#editor/target=post;postID=1418470346745234165ve wished for a worse return to Crabble since leaving us in the Summer and probably left the ground wishing he hadn't been such a note-chaser and instead signed the new contract we offered him. As the chants of 'Carthorse' ringed round we couldn't have felt more relieved that we were no longer lumbered with him.
I watched the final few minutes of the half peter out in the Centre Spot, thanks to our impressive live screening of the game on the TV's. It really is fucking impressive how good it is - the picture quality is immence. Only down-side of it is that it is too tempting to just stay and watch the game in the bar with a pint!
At half-time we were a bit shocked and overwhelmed at our response after our recent disastrous run of form. We were going into the second half with the mind-set that we were capable of absolutely hammering them.
Unfortunately though we didn't and the second half was a bit of a damp squib. But of course I'll take that! We did have chances to extend our lead even further with Purcell being guilty of wasting one golden chance. James Walker also had a shot well-saved by Forecast, who also did well to turn a Cogan free-kick round the post. But in general we were content to keep hold of possession and see the game out.
Its a shame that we have so many moaning old tossers on our terraces who do nothing but moan and slag off players, regardless of how well we're playing. Any misplaced pass or shot fired wide will be met with collective groans from these people who seem to get no enjoyment out of life. These are the same people that will walk round the side to leave early with ten minutes still to play. What do they get out of supporting Dover? I'm sure most clubs have sections of fans like this but it just completely puzzles me and pisses me off at times. Still , it was fun sing some piss-taking chants out of these people.
Bromley ensured with minutes remaining that we would finish the game without a clean sheet after a scrambled close-range header thanks to some poor DAFC defending. I will let them off on this occasion though because when your four goals up you do have room for some complacency.
Overall though I was chuffed when the referee blew for full-time and I would have snapped your arm off if you had offered me a 4-1 win before the game. Its hard to tell how much we have progressed with this win as Bromley are a very poor side that could be serious contenders for relegation if they continue their winless run. But you can only beat what is infront of you and we did that. After clearing out four players during the past week you could sense that there was more togetherness in our team and we couldn't have asked for a better response from our team. It was great to see Corcoran back into the fold and play really well and I'm pleased to hear from Nicky that he has been taken off the transfer list after displaying great attitude in training. Purcell's return to form was much needed and he showed us what he is capable of when he is confident, fit and firing.
While I shouldn't get carried away the result has given me a new lease of positivity and I just hope our players can carry on and prove to us what they are capable of.
As you're all aware I've been wearing a skanky chablais Dover jacket for the past year or so, something thats rare you will not see me wearing. So you'll be pleased to hear than John has bought me an impressive new chablais Dover jacket for my Christmas present. This one is a rainjacket and actually looks to be of real quality. I'm chuffed to bits to thank you John, I love you.
After giving into peer pressure I dodged the centre spot in favour of going straight back down to the OE. Seeing Fish and Jared tucking into a beer and burger made me feel like joining them and I did, even though I'd only just bought a steak and kidney pie up at the ground. The burgers are absolutely supreme and I highly reccomened you try eating a meal at the Old Endeavour. Proper home-made stuff and at reasonable prices. Its such a great pub. Friendly atmosphere, fit birds, beer gardens and top notch food. What more can you want?
Dad was in an amusingly drunken state, bemoaning that he had to go to cook dinner for the wife and other kids. I love not being under the thumb myself!
Saying that it was again pretty quiet on the post match beers. Fish and Jared stayed out for a little while, and only myself, John, Dave Waterfield, Phil Smith and DW's female accomplice stayed out for a reasonable amount of time. Everyone else had gone home!
I only managed about 3 pints in there after the game in a 3 hour spell, being wankered as I was. The only thing notable about this period was some annoying local cunt that John kept on speaking too.
He was some bloke who is involved in coaching some Dover youth teams and he was one of those people with a chip on their shoulder about the club. He was insuiating that none of us give a fuck about the youth system at the club and that we should replace our first team squad with youth team players. "Local lads, local PASHUN". He also claimed Jim Parmenter should resign as chairman because he only hinders the club, because all football clubs are based on are youth teams apparently. He was basically some deluded arsehole who was probably bitter that his son isn't good enough for first team football. He really wasn't worth the hassle or energy in speaking to.
We only went to one more pub after this; the weatherspoons in town where me and John managed one more pint before grabbing a takeaway and going home. Phil seemed to have a load of fit young work colleagues on their christmas do in there but all I can remember was some strange 'sport' on the Weatherspoons TV's, where there was some farmer bloke getting his sheep to race around a field with a dog. It was fucking bizarre whatever it was.
A indian feast pizza from the Pizzeria concluded an enjoyabloe home game,where John would give me a lift home in the morning for work, for once not too hungover. As John will tell you, I had an hilarious hissy fit in the morning when I coudln't find my work shirt. I ended up booting the bin over and smashing up my bedroom, as that always helps when you're looking for something.
By the way the name of the pizzeria is La Friends and its next to the Louis Armstrong pub in ladywell. Its the best pizzeria in Dover (and best value) so jot that down in your notebook.
Staines away on Saturday then. While their ground is a squalid little dum, I'm looking forward to a good day out on Saturday. We're all dressing up in Christmas outfits and I'm going to a meet a few of my Barrow-supporting chums in London, both of whom I met an Ebbsfleet game when Dover's game at Bishop Stortford got postponed a few seasons ago. They're away at Woking and Yeading so it calls for a pint or two in London. It should be a messy day out with a perfect opportunity to collect another 3 points against another struggling side. Saying that, we haven't beaten Staines in our last 5 games and four of them have ended in draws. I think we'll just about scrape this one.
Fingers crossed! Come on you motherfucking Whites!
| Saturday 10 Dec 2011 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woking | 4 | - | 1 | Sutton Utd | |
 Cowan-Hall (01) Binns (44) Ademola (64) Gray (07) |
Beautyman (33) |
 1,730 |
|||
| Dover | 4 | - | 1 | Bromley | |
| Purcell (13) Purcell (27) Walker (02) Purcell (32) |
Araba (87) |
625 |
|||
| Eastleigh | 3 | - | 2 | Thurrock | |
| Montgomery (29) Tsovolos (40) Brown (44) |
Ashton (83)  Guy (91) |
317 | |||
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Woking | 20 | 15 | 4 | 1 | 48 | 15 | 33 | 49 |
| 2 | |
Welling United | 19 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 43 | 26 | 17 | 40 |
| 3 |  |
Dartford | 18 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 38 | 21 | 17 | 37 |
| 4 | |
Chelmsford | 19 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 36 | 17 | 19 | 35 |
| 5 | |
Sutton United | 18 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 34 | 20 | 14 | 34 |
| 6 | |
Dover | 20 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 31 | 22 | 9 | 31 |
| 7 | |
Basingstoke Town | 17 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 32 | 21 | 11 | 30 |
| 8 | |
Dorchester | 22 | 9 | 3 | 10 | 29 | 33 | -4 | 30 |
| 9 | |
Weston-S-Mare | 19 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 34 | 32 | 2 | 28 |
| 10 | |
Boreham Wood | 19 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 23 | 26 | -3 | 28 |
| 11 | |
Tonbridge Angels | 21 | 8 | 4 | 9 | 35 | 40 | -5 | 28 |
| 12 | |
Eastleigh | 20 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 27 | 33 | -6 | 27 |
| 13 | |
Truro City | 19 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 33 | 35 | -2 | 26 |
| 14 | |
Eastbourne Borough | 19 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 34 | 32 | 2 | 25 |
| 15 | |
Salisbury City | 18 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 26 | 29 | -3 | 22 |
| 16 | |
Havant and Waterlooville | 19 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 32 | 32 | 0 | 21 |
| 17 | |
Farnborough | 20 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 28 | 47 | -19 | 20 |
| 18 | |
Bromley | 19 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 28 | 43 | -15 | 18 |
| 19 | |
Maidenhead United | 21 | 5 | 3 | 13 | 24 | 46 | -22 | 18 |
| 20 | |
Hampton & Richmond | 19 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 23 | 33 | -10 | 16 |
| 21 | |
Staines Town | 19 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 21 | 30 | -9 | 14 |
| 22 | |
Thurrock | 19 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 19 | 45 | -26 | 12 |
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