Absolutely Off Our Trolley: Dorchester 1-1 Dover

Another day, another game that we continue to stay unbeaten after although we headed back from Dorset very dissapointed, having seen Donovan Simmond's late strike cancelled out almost immedietly. The day would be more memorable for the off-the-field antics from the boozed-up disgracefully jollyboys.

To be honest, I don't know really where to start here. It was such a mad and heavy day that I have so much to go through if I write it all down. Unfortunately I can't be arsed, I'm in a bad mood and I need to head over to Dover later for our KSC tie so I'm just going to lazily jot things down in bullet points, if thats ok with you.

• Our train was due to depart at 7.24AM, which meant an annoying early alarm. Fortunately I nearly had the full 8 hours sleep so I wasn't too tired going into this eagerly anticipated away day. I met Fish before 7 and headed to the station to meet the others, picking up some plastic glasses and playing cards from the garage en route. Unfortunately there was not enough time for breakfast, but I did bring some pastries that I bought reduced from Morrisons the evening prior.
• This was a bit of a random train army crew for the journey. As well as myself and Fish, other regulars in Sappo and Josh (London Bridge) joined us, as well as Scotty (whom had defected from the coach), Randy Lucey (seems to have really of caught the away day bug), Chris Hunt (loveable ginger thug that managed to slip away from under-the-thumb duties to get to an away game) and most importantly, Leigh Piddlesden. If you know Leigh Pidds, you'll know that he is fucking brilliant entertainment at times and one of the funniest people alive when he's on form. Sadly an increased working pattearn at weekends means that he is unable to make as many away games anymore but it was a great to have him back for a one-off train journey, as he would provide most of the entertainment throughout the day.
• The beers were flowing un-naturally well at that ridiculous time in the morning, as the majority of us cracked on early. I had barely drunk anything in the past fortnight so it was easier for me, but fair play to Sappo who was cracking on with his wine despite having only had 2 hours sleep from the night before. This journey into London Waterloo was mainly consisting of light-hearted banter and we were fairly reasonably behaved, unlike the transformation into drunken idiots by the time we were on our next one.
• But yes, after making the quick cross over at Waterloo to get onto our train to Dorchester, it was all downhill from there. I won't completely divulge into everything that happened to protect any remaining dignity from those concerned but to cut a long story short, we had become loud, annoying and obnoxious to the general public. Luckily nothing serious involving violence, racism, homophobia or anything like that, just generally being twats and showing little concern for the public around us. On the previous train I told of a chant that I had nicked off Leeds fans created myself; "We do what we want, we do we want, we're Dover Athletic, we don't give a fuck. While I initially meant it in irony it would actually be an apt moniker for us throughout the day.
• Sadly we couldn't find any table seats on this train but within half an hour we would have annoyed/scared into making one woman move away from the table she was sat at us near her. (Shouldn't take up a whole table seat on your own anyway - selfish cunt). While there was also a friendly Asian woman on the other table that took a shining to us. I can't recall what her name was but she was predicting Andy's future by doing something with his hand, while being very talkative to the rest of us. By the time she got off at Southampton she had taken a picture with all of us on her camera, so we can't be all that bad! She would also move back a couple of seats in order to allow us to play a drinking game with my newly purchased deck of cards; higher or lower. Quite a simple game that could easily be found on google if you're not aware of it. This game would quite simply kick-start Pidds' descent into complete and utter drunkeness, as he managed to get through a whole deck of cards and about half a litre of vodka within 10 minutes. Brilliant.
• I recall Chris Hunt making some rancid drink out of crushed up crips and strong polish vodka, which he necked before spitting it out on the floor immedietly. Unimpressed, we made him clear it up as it smelt absolutely vile. Pidds and Chunty would have us in hysterics for most of the 2.5hours journey while also making us cringe in embarrassment at the same time. It was like we were visiting the ryman south days all over again! By the time we nearly arrived in Dorchester we had received quite a few complaints by the public from the female train guard! To be fair too us though, we responded respectfully and calmed down a bit from then on.
• We were initially planning to stop in Weymouth and meet Phil Smith down there for pre match drinks, but in the end decided against the hassle and just went to Dorchester instead. The journey, for all the fun it was, seeemed to have taken forever and we were just desperate to get off. The funniest part about getting off the train, circa 12:04, was Josh's reaction to drinking his 'water' that Chunty had spiked with his rancidly strong vodka. 
• Luckily we wouldn't have to walk far to make our way into a pub. The Station, aptly but confusingly named drinking cavern, was only 100 metres down the road and proved to  be a great home for us over the next few hours. It was such an efficient place that we didn't even need to attempt to find another pub out of the way, it had everything we could possibly need; pool tables, darts board, sky tv with the Norwich V Chelsea game, comfortable leather sofa's, plug sockets to charge up phones, beer garden with plenty of smoking tables, pints of Carlsberg at £2.20 a pint and obscenely cheap food. I'm pretty certainly that it was chain pub, but it certainly served a fine job for us. Without any real ale drinkers amongst us, and being the types happy to drink fizzy piss, this was perfect. Usually I quite like visiting other pubs and was pondering over whether to head the opposite way into town but in the end decided "if it ain't broke, why fix it?".
• Nothing particularly note-worthy to report here, other than continuation of getting absolutely bladdered. I think I managed 3 pints here, 1 of them being turboed with a vk tropical, as well as necking 3 jaigerbombs. But other than that we were half-respectable, playing lots of pool, watching the football on TV and spunking money away on the quiz machine, where I had a little chance of remembering my own name let alone answering questions on general knowledge. Most of the others ended up buying all day breakfasts in here for a measley £2.75. I have to say they smelt and looked delicious too.
• For some reason a few of the others were bored here and we wanted to head up to the ground, so we departed about quartar to 2 and headed up the long straight road to the ground. It took about 12 minutes, all direct and just past the big tesco's - fortunately not too difficult for us to find. En route we managed to see Leigh Pidds comically stack over the pavement, abused lots of teenagers in the skate park on the road opposite and told any half-attractive female on our road that they were fit and "we'd love to....". I also heard the others singing a song about me as me and Sappo walked ahead. Thinking it would be something about me being a fat turd or the like I was pleasantly suprised to hear the lyrics "he gets his pen, he writes his blog". Quite random but spectacular.
• It was great to renew acquintances in the bar with fellow travelling Dovorians. I tried to convince them, and convince myself, that I wasn't actually that drunk compared to the others with me, which actually wasn't the case at all. Looking back I was pretty half-cut by here, as evidenced by taking the sky remote and changing the channells and the volume, while everybody was watching crappy darts on the big tv's in the bar. Cuntish and immature, I know, but it seemed utterly hilarious at the time, as did one unindentified Dover fan completely nicking the remote. We do what we want etc.
  I think a couple of Dover fans attempted to chat up one of the fit two barmaids behind the bar and had his advances spurred on her claim that she was a lesbian. Whether this was genuinely the case or if she just wanted to get rid of a strange non-league football fan, I don't know.
  Anyway, I sank a further two pints of San Miguel in here, although I severely struggled to finish the second as bloatedness caught up on me. It was time to head inside their ground and struggle to fit through the tighter-than-a-nun's-vagina turnstiles as Andy Lucey once again somehow managed to get my mammoth self in as a child.
• Sadly, the football game turned out to be a massive damp squib. Well, what I remember of it anyway.
  It was largely a game where both of the defences came out on top, in an opening 75 minutes where there were virtually no chances at all, or any shots on target from what I remember. James Walker and George Purcell sadly had very dissapointing games and couldn't get anything out of their defence but Bricknell and Simmonds looked far more effective when they replaced them.
  As for the first half, I cannot remember jackshit so I won't even attempt to look up a match report or anything. The only thing I do recall on the pitch was a horrible two footed tackle from a Dorchester player only get punished with a yellow card, much to the angst of our 100+ strong away following. The incident actually angered one of the most unlikely Dover fans into getting ejected from the ground after a half-time verbal altercation with the referee, so I am led to believe. Sadly I missed the incident as I was too busy drinking a bottle of beer and smoking a fag in their toilets, but I will spare the blushes of said Dover supporter by not revealing their identity.
  The main nuisance of the first half was their stewards, with two jobsworth idiots constantly attempting to stop us from smoking, drinking and having a general fucking good time. We kept ignoring their persistant demands if I remember correctly, but I do remember having the last dregs of my budweiser bottle taken off of me.
• The second half we kicked off towards the end with no roof, which led to most of our fans being spread out around the ground. We went onto the side terrace where we could continue to make a good atmosphere, while others went behind the goal. Chunty and Pidds, aka the combined nightmare, were on the far either side in some strange bus shelter type thing. It was one of the few areas in the ground where you are allowed to smoke, so they stayed there the whole second half. It led to some funny chanting between the two sides.
  As for the small matter of fuschball, the game seemed to carry on in the second half in the same vein as the first, before the introduction of both Brickcnell and Simmonds.
  It was the latter who had our first real chance, who had a shot deflected over the bar from a superb Dixon pass. For some reason though the twat running the line deemed him offside anyway. Simmo would then have a shot cleared off the line before the two subsitutes combined for the Dover goal.
  Bricknell chased a seeming lossed cause down the left hand side and out-muscled their defender. His cross fell into the path of the on rushing Simmons who made contact with it, enough to trickle into the back of the onion sack.
  Cue absolutely manic celebrations in our terrace, where I preceded to run up and down the terrace with my shirt over my head, then engaged in lots of manly kissing and cuddling with the others. Leigh Pidds became the second Dover fan to get chucked out of the ground after cooly invading the pitch in a calm, gentle manner. He was back inside the ground within two minutes though after somehow making his way through the dressing rooms. 
• I at the time believed this was a last minute goal as the clock on the main stand indicated at 16:47ish. Thus I was absolutely devastated when we chucked away the three points just a minute or so later. I think it was Barry Cogan that made the criminally short back pass that was gratefully intercepted and cooly tucked away past Ruiz. It was an awful, stupid error that cost us three points that we had worked really hard to get. Coagz has been playing really well over the past month so hopefully this won't knock his confidence too much.
  While I was angry at what i'd just witnessed, I was also delighted to hear we still had 8 minutes or so left to play. But it seemed as if the momentum switched in Dorchester's favour as they enjoyed most of the late pressure but both sides ended up sharing the points.
• So overall it was a very physical game, a hard fought contest. It was just gutting that we were left to make the long journey home in dissapointment rather than being jubiliant as we should have been. Still, we're unbeaten in 6 league games and their are still a lot of positives. Fortunately most of the sides around us lost, as much as a shame it is that we couldn't have capitalized on that.
• We ended up having another drink inside their bar, which was not exactly a place I wanted to be. Everyone had booked specific tickets booked for the 6.33 train back though so we had plenty of time to kill. This meant having to drink alongside some Dorchester fans celebrating their draw as if they had won the FA Cup, which was irrattating but understandable given their mighty scalp.
• After some cheeky shenanghians in their bar which I won't divulge further into we headed into the tesco next door, eager to buy some beer and grub for the journey back. I ended up coming out of the store with a pack of crossaints, a quiche and 8 cans of Kronenbourg, which ended up being 4 cans too many. Here we thought it would be great to take an abandoned trolley up to the station so we wouldn't have to carry the bags up the hill. It turned into quite a genius idea, although taking it onto the train was an unnecessary but funny thing to do at the time. We also quicky stopped into the Station for a quick pint. I only drunk a half, while others bought a pint and took them onto the train with them.
• This journey was another one blighted by some idiotic-but-funny-at-the-time behaviour. First up bits of tesco value chicken slices were being thrown at each other and against the window, then Chunty thought it was a funny idea to physically force a piece up my nostril. Which to be fair it was. We in a mini-carriadge here on our own so fortunately we were'nt really effecting other members of the public.
  Chris continued the pranks by dousing some of Josh's chocolate muffins with his strong Polish vodka. Sadly he made them too wet for Josh to actually eat one.
  Josh's reactions to our behaviour was quite amusing. He was clearly very embarrassed and was worried that we'd get into trouble, thus kept going into other carridges of the train. This stuff was actually pretty mild compared to some of the stuff we used to get up to!
  A chinese couple got on in our carridge at one train stop and immedietly decided it would be better to sit elsewhere. Then some snobby chubby student also got on and some decided to chat her up, despite the fact she was a total minger.
  I had the option here of staying round my mates house in Bournemouth but decided I was in too much of a state to go out in a coherent manner. Thus, I chickenly avoided the calls and allowed the others to answer my phone, whom pretended to speak in a foreign accents and ask what takeaways they would have liked. (If your reading this  for whatever reason then sorry Joel, I only had £30 in the bank left which I need for football tonight. I should have been honest)
• Anyway, I'm sure i've missed out on plenty of other antics but rest assured, it was a messy one coupled with some idiotic, twattish drunken behaviour. But for the last half hour or so we moved into the first class carriadge next door which was empty and phone charger sockets. We calmed down there, with myself slouched out on the seat listening to crap outdated music on my phone. I text Dad to ask him if I could stay at his and luckily he agreed, because there was no way I'd be able to get to Herne Bay alive on my own. 
• It took us three fucking hours to get back into Waterloo, and our train into Dover wasn't until at least another half an hour. So I quickly got a small wrap meal from burger king and made my way up onto the platform, where the others were ready to board a train to Ashford International in the hope that we'd get home quicker. It didn't make a difference, sadly. We were so drained and tired by the time we got into this journey that we had seemingly sobered up, and transformed back into half-respectable human beings. We began reflecting on the day, as if was the morning after. Normally most people are in bed or sobering up by 11AM and hammered by 11PM but for us, it was the other way round. By the time we arrived into Dover priory just gone midnight, none of could wait to hit the sack. No takeaways, no beer, no nothing. And that is exactly what we did to conclude a messy, humourous and memorable away day.

So I guess I'll be seeing a few of you tonight for our boring KSC tie against Welling. I'm mad coming up from Herne Bay for a full price midweek game like this but I need to make up for missing Maidstone away earlier in the season. So I'll have to write a boring update about that one too. Never mind.

I'll leave you with some photos of the day, for those of you that aren't friends with me on facebook

Guess the football ground?

Lucey on the fiddle.

Higher or Lower in full swing

Chris Hunt and Scotty embrace.

Sappo and Josh Watkins contemplate on life.

"Yeah, so I smashed her back doors in"

Chris spits out his vile "drink"

What's Martyn Mcgarrigle doing here?

Leigh Pidds and Fish get frisky.

Get back in your biscuit it!

Delicious and nutricious

POW

Easy now Josh.

Bus wanker Jared.

Fish, Sappo, Jared and Josh.

I thought this was very smart. Take note Dover.

Preparing for the second half.

What a donut.

Bald army. For some reason we've gone straight back to the morning photos?!

Rise and shine at 7:50AM

Saturday 21 Jan 2012 Basingstoke 1 - 0 Eastleigh Sills (76) 404 Boreham Wood 3 - 0 Weston-S-Mare Lobjoit (48) Lobjoit (66) Lechmere (91) 201 Bromley 1 - 1 Truro City Harwood (45) Joseph-Dubois (64) Watkins (46) 435 Chelmsford 0 - 1 Staines Town Wheeler (74) 901 Dorchester 1 - 1 Dover Nichols (84) Simmonds (82) 579 Hampton & Richmond 1 - 3 Dartford Simmonds (08) Bradbrook (33) Bradbrook (49) Erskine (53) 656 Maidenhead Utd 1 - 1 Sutton Utd Williams (06) Riviere (08) 313 Salisbury 2 - 0 Woking Matthews (46) Dutton (62) 1,034 Thurrock 0 - 0 Havant and W 194 Tonbridge Angels 5 - 1 Eastbourne Borough Piper (11) Collin (01) Collin (47) Collin (67) Collin (77) Crabb (24) Rook (39) 734 Welling 1 - 0 Farnborough Cumbers (75) Bergqvist (84) 555
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