The Kimchi Chronicles: Ground #159: The Deva Stadium, Chester FC.

11/04/2015

Chester 3-1 Dover Athletic

McBurnie '46, Dobson '59, Rooney 71' | Payne 36'

Attendance: 1,645 (approx 100 away)

Admission: £10 (under 21)

With its impressive Roman Walls, rivers and canals, huge array of excellent pubs and restaurants spread across the city centre, the penultimate away game of the season on a Sunny afternoon in Chester was one to approach with as much anticipation as much as any of the many new away days on offer when the fixture list first emerged. This feeling particularly strengthened on a footballing perspective going into this game as we would still quite incredibly hold faint ambitions of making a very late dash into the play-offs.

Having won five out of our last eight fixtures, losing just once, expectations arriving into this game pointed all towards a probable away win; by contrasts the hosts would approach the game having just lost their previous three games in which they shipped a total of twelve goals.

And during the opening 45 minutes of this game proceedings occurred precisely to how the form book would suggest, everything going swimmingly to plan with leading goalscorer Stefan Payne ensuring that we'd go into the half-time interval holding a one goal lead. He stabbed the ball into the scantily protected goal after Ricky Modeste's mazy run and cross caused confusion and disarray in the box.

In truth at this stage our lead didn't feel particularly warranted but it felt like we were on course for another classic blueprint of many of our other successes this season; winning games, and looking comfortable in doing so, without ever really dominating proceedings.

Such thoughts however were extremely premature. The party atmosphere amongst our strong away following contingent (in relative terms at least) completely eroded and rapidly so once the game restarted. Barely a minute passed when Chester equalised; a dreadful mistake was committed by our goalkeeper Mitchell Walker, who allowed Oliver McBurnie's weak, scuffed shot to squirm underneath his body after we failed to offer any resistance to winger Matty Hughes's galloping run.

Just over ten minutes later they were in front. Direct from a corner, Chester were allowed space for a laughably easy headed goal, Craig Hobson glancing in unmarked from the near post. Walker hopelessly out of position for that one; signifying a poor afternoon for the young goalkeeper, his confidence seemingly shot to shreds here after.

To be fair, there wasn't much he could have done to prevent their third goal and game killer. John Rooney, sibling of the potato headed England international Wayne, was allowed all the time and space he wanted after muscling into the box, then produced a precise curling effort into the corner and well beyond his reach. Game over.

Our dismal second half showing was compounded by our inability to muster a meaningful shot on target as we never really threatened to get back into the match. The only redeeming moment was when midfielder Sol Taiwo accidentally tripped the referee, who collapsed like a bag of shit and milked the incident for all it were worth!
As poor our showing were though I was able to immediately forgive the team for their powderpuff performance. To have attained 66 points and be in eighth position with a few games still to go is just mind-blowing, especially when you consider we lost eight of our opening eleven fixtures, having fluked and blagged promotion in the first place.

It's easy to come across as bitter in the face of defeat here but my thoughts would be exactly the same had we seen out that second half to plan; The Deva Stadium is a terrible, soulless venue. At complete contrast to the grandeur of the historical and wonderful city centre, the ground is situated completely off track and in the arse end of a grimy industrial estate, where a poor one-way traffic system is responsible for a congested taxi ride to and from the centre.

The ground is tidy and efficient, don't get me wrong. Two symmetrical seated stands that run the entire length of the pitch, matched by two identical sized stands behind either goal; one seated and the other terraced. As a spectator you have sound views of the match. But it's just so plain, boring, ugly and identikit. The grim settings matched by a total lack of enthusiasm or noise from any area of the home ends. True, they had nothing to play for, and for some reason a match against opponents in a club of DAFC's calibre doesn't prompt much fervour or excitement. But it did highlight just how dreary some of this out-of-town breezeblocks can be; how devoid of serving the community they can actually are. While I regularly moan about the mundanity of the poor Crabble matchday experience I would now be completely opposed to building a new gaff in one of the surrounding villages of the town, as has been rumoured.

Us Dovorians who made the trip provided cracking entertainment as usual, once again surprising our opponents who were expecting the standard Braintree or Welling level of nondescript following. I have to credit Darren Boyd for initiating a brilliant new ditty for our leading marksman; extremely unique by the current dull standards of the UK chanting culture, to the tune of 'A lion sleeps tonight'

He's a striker, a mighty striker, his name is Stefan Payne,

Oh Stefan Payne, Oh Stefan Payne, Oh Stefan Payne,

WEEEEE-OHHHHHH-STEFF-AAAAN-PAAAAYNE

I'm sure you'll agree, another brilliant addition to our plethora of shit songs to retro pop songs, which already include the likes of;

"Took her to the Crabble on a Monday, took her to the Crabble on Tuesday, we were at the Crabble on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Crabble on Sunday" - (Craig David's 'Seven Days')

"You have got to swing it shake it move it make it D, O, V, E, R" (Spice Girl's 'Who Do You Think You Are')

"He's Ricky Modeste, He's better than all the rest, He's better than everyone, Everyone I've ever met" (Tina Turner's 'Simply The Best')

And last but not least;

"Oh Ricky you're so fine, You're so fine you blow my mind, Hey Ricky! Hey, hey Ricky!" ('Hey Mickey' by Bewitched).

Regardless of the disappointment a matchday at the Deva Stadium brings, I would still thoroughly recommend Chester as one of the key weekenders to make a fist of while we continue to share a division with them. The city is fantastic and it is one for people of all ages; the younger whippersnappers looking to have a night boogieing and chasing skirt; or the elder couples hoping to unwind at excellent restaurants and good bars. And in terms of engaging in real ale wankery; you'll struggle to find such a dense concentration of excellent beer pubs. Telford Warehouse by the canal is awesome and has great choice for everyone, the Sam Smith's joint The Falcon is ridiculously cheap with great beer offerings, The Brewery Tap has eight rotating cask beers and The Pied Bull offers it's own excellent beer brewed en site. And that is just a small handful selection of the many on offer.

For something more lively and upbeat; Friday night I enjoyed getting utterly annihilated in Off The Wall, a bar offering 2 cocktails for £5. On the second evening the widely mocked Martyn McGarrigle managed to pull off a miracle by somehow pulling a 37 year old housewife named Wendy in the seedy nightclub called Rosies; which he never even needed to work hard to exchange saliva. An absolute goldmine for ensnaring crumpet, my other friend Paul Sansum was almost actually disappointed by how little groundwork he required to put in while there.

My Father and his Wife enjoyed their weekend just as much as we did, mainly for differing reasons though. He recommended both the Tapas eatery El Negro Pato and Turkish joint Istanbul BBQ as worthy restaurant choices.
As I reiterate; a city break worthwhile making for all pillars of society.

And that concludes this season of away games for me, sadly. Unenthused by early evening kick off, lack of viable rail links and an omittance of any concrete plans from my friends and peers I have made the decision to pursue a more adventurous plan (which can be viewed in my list of grounds attended section) instead of attending our final game against Forest Green Rovers. A great shame but an excellent season is probably best concluded when we host the travelling masses of Bristol Rovers this weekend; a Gas invasion that will see us twice outnumbered as we bring their title hopes to a crashing halt ~~provided we don't muster another half-arsed performance as per this past Saturday~~.

Having been fortunate to attend 21 out of our 23 away league fixtures this campaign, my first season supporting Dover in a national league and finally being a tiny fish amongst a large pond, rather than vice versa, I feel positioned and compelled to offer my observations of how the matchday experience differs playing proper, ex-professional clubs.

As a borderline alcoholic and matchday binge-drinker extraordinaire, this league is the absolute dog bollocks. Ignoring the traditional Conference South and Ryman level clubs like ourselves, the list of excellent drink towns and cities is endless. It's actually quicker to list off the crap-pub towns than it is for the decent ones. My bank balance, liver and general health have taken an absolute hammering since the season commenced in August, which is partly why I'm looking to returning to a reasonable, more respectful lifestyle in the off-season.

In terms of the actual match watching experience itself though it continues to fall short on quality, for differing reasons. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic to be able to watch my club test themselves at grounds like Blundell Park, The Racecourse Ground, Sincil Bank, Plainmoor, The Memorial Ground and other impressive football league worthy stadia. They are a world away from places like Gosport, Basingstoke and Ebbsfleet and I harbour zero desire to return back to the pits of our natural level at any point soon.

The problem is though, I get the impression that very few of those clubs regard playing us as a serious game, the feeling of depression and decay amongst these befallen behemoths makes for more often than not a silent or dead atmosphere. Grimsby and Lincoln are two of the very few clubs that have actually bothered to attempt to make some noise or give us some stick back when we've played against them. But it's usually our double-figure sized away followings that are providing the only semblance of ambiance inside the ground, and even then it's only a smattering of us who sing up. We're regularly given a patronizing pat on the back, being told that our following was more impressive than expected and that we should be proud of ourselves. Torquay fans even remarked that we were the best away fans that they had had there in years. But personally I've felt that while our followings have generally been numerically at a respectful level, they could still be better.

An example I could best list is when we played at Wrexham on a Tuesday night a few weeks ago and our 21 strong following was announced by their club over the PA. This prompted the entire home support to clap us and even a rendition of "loyal supporters" rung around amongst their vocal section.

Part of me thought "that's nice of them, fair play, good gesture" but my more cynical nature was demanding "why are they being so amicable to us"? It's a competition, not a fucking tea dance. I'd much rather have "your support is fucking shit" hurled toward us, being treated as the threat that our on field team deserves. After all, we took 4 points off of them this season.

I was genuinely quite disappointed by the hospitality rather than hostility especially after being warned of Wrexham's less than pleasant reputation with an anti-English sentiment. But to the contrary they were one of the friendliest and most welcoming clubs we've encountered both home and away.

"Loyal supporter"? Please, I didn't even bother going to our home match against Altrincham the week previously when I'm a season ticket holder and could made the game.

On the whole though it has been a vastly enjoyable season and a real privilege being able to travel even further wide to support my club, punching hugely above our weight as we've occasionally stung the nose of some of the big boys. Our last minute mentaller equaliser to silence 6,000 Gasheads at the Memorial Ground will rank up there as one of the most surreal and adrenaline rushed moments I've experienced supporting the club. Our first Saturday away game at Grimsby was almost as delightful and a real eye opener, if only Nanetti had not missed an injury time penalty then our 87th minute equaliser in that game would be equally as well regarded.

On a personal level I do feel that ideally this season would have been better off arriving 3 or 4 years ago, when I was still such madly passionate and less apathetic about the club as I am now and there was still a greater feelgood factor at the club, but I shan't complain. I've finally been able to fill out my desire to watch my club compete amongst the big boys for at least one season.

The curtains closing on this campaign marks the end of an era, the conclusion of being a regular matchday goer. I have been a season ticket holder since 2004/05 (though was a regular in the two seasons before that), barely missing any away games since March 2006, so it's fair to say I have ~~squandered~~ dedicated many years of my life disgracing the terraces across the southeast and beyond supporting the club.

Come September 2015 I will be a resident of Leicester as a university student, finally embarking on something I should have started a very long time ago. Up until now I have known nothing but watching Dover Athletic week in, week out, year in, year out, an obsession so unhealthy that it ultimately was detrimental in enjoying or pursuing other aspects of life. That's my personality fault though, not the club's, and I'm hoping that regular spells of absenteeism will respark some of the drive I've had sadly lost. Absence makes the heart grow stronger, apparently.

For the main part, it's been an absolute pleasure and I wouldn't change anything. Thanks.