Embarrassed By A Pub Side: Hythe 3-0 Dover

That was fucking diabolical. Even having given myself a good 36 hours or so to calm down I am still struggling to come to terms with our Kent Senior Cup exit on Tuesday evening, in which was certainly one of the worst DAFC performances I have ever had the misfortune to witness.

I was actually rather looking forward to this tinpot fixture aswell. I'd agreed to meet Jared in Canterbury for a couple of pre match jars of lager which is where we'd get picked up by my father who was driving us to the game.
Not wanting to spend too much money, the best place to drink of course is in a Weatherspoons. This would also give me the opportunity to get some of their cheap microwaved grub. And for once I didn't go for my patterned Chicken Gourmet Burger and instead ordered a large mixed grill with it being their Steak night.
It was rather large too and it did a satisfactory job. Like most weatherspoons food it wasn't great but it was value for money and quite worth it.
Me and Jared spent a couple of hours in that weatherspoons and quite amazingly we only managed to drink two pints each in that period, as we slowly nursed them over tediously dull conversations. He was trying to convince me (and himself) that we will easily be able to take Chelmsford's play-off place. Bless him - he really hasn't got a fucking clue.
He also tried telling me a story about one of his Czech university mates shagging a cat or something which made me feel physically sick. Why the fuck would you want to hang around with people like that?

Anyway, the old man picked us up nearby just before 6PM, which was a pretty early time to set off considering its only a 25 minute (max) drive into Hythe. Its always a rare treat having Dad behind the wheel. He doesn't drive much these days (he's only insured on his wife's) because he mainly uses his free train travel to get around. I do miss the younger days with him having a car because he has some of the most fantastic car rage you could ever hope for in a driver. "One of you kids get out of the car and shit on his bonnet" is one of the many classics over the years. Some of the better ones I can't really repeat here!

Sadly there was none of that this time though. It was a rather difficult drive down lots of country lanes with little lighting so he had to be extra cautious. We arrived into Hythe pretty earlier so Dad stopped at the Sainsbury's and did a bit of shopping, include getting himself something to eat. The warm sausage rolls he bought were allededly so bad that he had to throw most of it away.

With about an hour left before kick-off we were parked up outside Reachfields, the scene of our humiliating FA cup exit in 2007, when our eventual Ryman South league winners crashed out to a Hythe side containing many ex Dover players including excellent-goalkeeper-but-massive-wanker Paul Hyde.
Anyway, even though I was at that game I could still barely recall anything about the game or the ground. I was in my GSCE year at the time so I was probably tanked up on lots of cheap tinnies before the game.

I mugged off yet another turnstile operator by getting in for £4 as an 18 year old. Sadly the grim reality is that I'll actually turn 21 later this year so how long I'll be able to keep this up for I don't know. But to be fair, £4 is probably still too much to pay for a kent senior cup tie.
Anyway, it was now beer o'clock so time for my first visit into their bar, which was up a flight of stairs above their main stand.

It was typical like most club bars at that level. A small, cramped squalid shithole but with walls abound with memoriablia, even for a club who's most memorable game was beating Staines 2-0 in the FA Cup last season. (They even had framed DVD's of that game, which made myself chortle). But I did quite like the place, it had a homely feel and it enabled people to watch the game on the balconys. They had Fosters, Stella, Becks and Kronenbourg on tap which is a pretty decent selection, and none of them over £3.20 a pint.
But best of all was the barmaid that served me. The face was nothing spectacular but she had an absolutely incredible rack with a great amount of clevage on show. Definately the sort you'd love to get a soapy tit-wank off of.

A lot of the Dover first team players that were either injured or unavailable were in here playing pool including Corcoron, Simpemba, Huke, Purcell, Harris and Ruiz. The latter patted me on the back and said "You alright mate" which gave me a little semi. I don't know whether I've had a conversation with him while I've been pissed in the Centre Spot or wherever he was just being friendly. You can make your minds up on that.

I popped out for a cigerrette and to take a glance at what players were training to get an idea of who would be lining up for us. I spoke to a couple of Dover fans in Phil Palmer and Adam Southey and it appeared that Olly Schulz was training.... who had earlier been announced had been released by the club. Huh? Was he being given a final swansong?
I was also suprised to see the likes of Terry Dixon and Tom Wynter out there so it appeared we were going to field a pretty strong side.

I sneaked upstairs to neck another swift pint of becks before we headed outside a few minutes before kick-off. When we heard that Bricknell, Simmonds, Dixon and Walker were all starting I and many others were thinking "fucking hell, this is an attacking line up. We could rack up quite a few goals here". Sadly my misplaced arrogance was also echoed by the players who would churn out what was quite a disgusting performance by the Whites, in a line-up containing 11 contracted first team players.

We headed behind the goal that we were attacking with most of the other Dover fans, a flat, uncovered end with trees behind the goal. (Mental note - would insert pictures here but have left my camera at Dads house. Add them to blog at later date). Its a pretty awful end made worse by the netting they have at the barrier, meaning you have to watch the game through loads of fabric.
It was good to see a good turnout here and I think it would be fair to say we shared just under half the 636 crowd, which was Hythe's highest attendance of the season. (Their cup final etc). It was good to see all the familar faces like Champ, Kevin (Booster), Alex Wilshaw and most importantly Malcolm, the Charlton fan who has been missing in action for quite a long while.

To be fair we didn't start the game off too badly. Starkey made an attacking run early on and his cross-shot just fizzled over the bar, then Donovan Simmonds was rather unfortunate to see his curling shot just go wide of the post in a goal being protected by ex Dover reject Dean Ruddy, who would be in for an easy night from here onwards.

Half an hour into the game we found ourselves 2-0 down. The first goal they were allowed to play a low cross into the box, we got caught out by a dummy and one of their lads duly converted the simple chance. Then ex-Dover hero Jimmy Dryden found himself on the scoresheet with a goal straight out of the Stoke City manual. A long throw into the box was headed high into the air, somehow none of our players got to the falling ball and Jimmy headed it backwards to loop the ball over Lee Hook.

Cue a "That wasn't meant to happen" disbelief from our travelling contigent but we could see it happening from a mile off. We were struggling to string 3 passes together, second to every single ball and generally looked clueless every time we ventured forward. A team consisting of players that allededly want to make the Conference South players were getting outfought, outplayed and embarrassed by a side that got tonked 8-0 by Folkestone fucking Invicta on Boxing Day. And yet even after this horrible set-back we still didn't manage to improve.

What made it worse was that it was getting rubbed in a group of 20 mongy retarded chavs supporting Hythe, hilariously trying to get an atmosphere going by singing stuff like "your support is fucking shit" at us. When you're getting repeatedly wound up by untermenchen like that then you need to give the game up.

We managed to carve out a couple of chances before half-time. Former (?) player Olly Schulz smashed a volley inside the box against the cross bar which bounced over the netting and firmly lodged itself in one of the trees behind the goal. Then Bricknell managed to break into the box but scuffed a weak shot straight at Ruddy, showing a real lack of confidence, composure and technique as the referee put us out of our misery and blew for half-time.

Couldn't be bothered to waste time on a half-time pint so we went around the other side and placed ourselves behind the goal. Gave us time to reflect on how awful we were and to have some great banterous chat. The thing I like about these tinpot games is theres always half-hearted conversations going on as the football isn't really that important. There were numerous funny quips throughout the game including Bryan Hall shouting "Come on Dover - I'm missing Big Fat Gypsy Wedding for this!". I'm sure I came up with a couple of gooduns myself including "Fucking hell Dad why couldn't you just have brought me up as a Chelsea fan instead" as we looked on in horror at our latest misplaced aimless pass.

Malcolm was good value as always too and he was giving me good advice on what I need to do to make my blogs more interesting. Apparently my last one on the Welling game was shit and I need to include more information on what I eat because its interesting apparently.
I chugged through quite a lot of cigerrettes in this game with stress levels being quite high and I even saw George Hulks puffing on one. Last I remember he had given up smoking for months and was lecturing me on how I should give up too, the hypocrite. I can't blame him though after watching that shower of gutless shite.

We were hoping that Forster would give the team a fucking good bollocking and we'd see a good response out of the players in the second half to wrong a few rights. Sadly whatever he said clearly didn't work as the next 45 minutes would be excruciatingly painful viewing.

Only 15 minutes into the second half Dryden would get his second and Hythe's third when he finished from close range after some more horrendous defending. We never really looked like getting a mere consolation goal as Hythe defended well, while our toothless forwards made it easy for them by playing predictable balls or running straight into their players. The closest we went was when Noone's poorly taken free kick somehow dipped onto their bar and nearly bounced in but other than that there was fuck all goalmouth action of note. Simmonds was fucking lazy and never chased back, Walker put himself about but kept aimlessly running into defenders, Dixon was absolutely shocking as he has been since he signed a contract and we hailed him as the best thing since sliced bread, clearly the next member of the Chris Allen curse*. But Bricknell was the worst of the lost in my opinion. He began resorting to kicking and being violent towards their players when it was evident he couldn't get the better of them.

*The Chris Allen curse is a term I've coined from Phil Smith. He was a player we signed on loan during out Conference relegation season and apparently he was superb for us until he signed permenantly, in which he was dogshit from there afterwards.

With less than ten minutes to go we had seen enough, my Dad had seen enough and we decided to drive home and get the fuck out of their, as we watched our Kent Senior Cup dream shattered by a load of uncommitted passionateless leeches just their to pick up their wages. And by the sounds of it we didn't miss anything. Good riddance. We weren't the only ones either. Mark Winter and Champ's car load lasted about ten minutes less than us. Really can't blame them either. It was an absolutely shocking performance, quite disgusting in fact. Had it occured in a more important competition it would be probably go down as the worst performance ever - even rivalling Dartford away from last season.

So I go into Saturday really unenthralled by DAFC's prospects of winning at Salisbury but as usual, I am looking forward to the day out, and a visit to the only ground I haven't been to yet in this league. As usual, whether we draw or lose I will be fucking hammered and that will numb the pain. I'm totally convinced we'll finish nowhere near the play-offs anyway so I can just relax and try to enjoy the final few months of the season.

What happens if we win on Saturday though? Will my fickleness meter go through the roof? I've been accused of being fickle by some of my followers on twitter, mainly from some Gravesend and Eurotunnel supporter. Apparently I think we're the best team ever when we win and we're the worst team ever when we lose. That's not an unreasonable assessment but I hope people believe me when I say we were truely dire on Tuesday. And its not my fault that I feel a bit optimistic after a couple of good performances and then Dover go and churn out an unnacceptable performance after building my hopes up. They wouldn't understand but I'd hope you fellow Dovorians do.