The Kimchi Chronicles: Guiseley vs Dover Athletic

Ground Number 189: Nethermoor Park

Guiseley 0-3 Dover Athletic

Tuesday 16th February 2016

FA Trophy 4th Round Replay

Attendance: 476 (Approx 25 Away)

Admission: £10 (Student)

WE'RE THE BARMY DOVER ARMY AND WE'RE GOING TO WEM-BER-LEE.

Says, with over a month since my previous outing watching the Whites away at Lincoln, I'd been rather keen to seize the opportunity to watch the club I supposedly support again. The one bonus of significantly reducing your matchday attendance at your club is that you look forward to it more when it comes round to it again.

I had other motives too;

Guiseley is the only remaining ground in the Conference Premier I was yet to visit.
With the winners of this tie being rewarded with a trip to either Nantwich or Stourbridge, nestled two divisions below, the likelihood of our weekender booked in Leeds next month for the league fixture is likely to be jeopardized. The FA Trophy semi final second leg falls on the date, so now seemed like a good time to tick it off.
In the event of getting to Wembley, I now have grounds to berate the jonny come lately tag-ons who will crawl out of the woodwork. "Where the fuck were you at Guiseley on that Tuesday night in February".
It's the FA Trophy, a competition I have a lot of time for, even if its integrity has been damaged by the carefree attitude of the big ex-league clubs and the FA itself which has devalued the competition by recently shoehorning the final in Mid March.

Having spent the previous night in Leeds, I had to make my way back to Leicester early doors for a three hour stint at uni, before heading up to Yorkshire again on my tod. I can't really complain at being the jammy recipient of free travel because of my father's occupation, but it's fair to say I was feeling a bit tired, groggy and shit on way back up to God's own county.

Guiseley is a 14 minute ride outside of Leeds, where I made my way too via a change at Derby. When approaching Sheffield we were informed that our train would have to be diverted due to a train exploding just outside Meadowhall (or something like that), I feared the typical 'here we go again' worst. But thankfully the delay was less severe than expected and I made my connection, arriving into Guiseley at the planned arrival time of quarter to seven.

The ground is conveniently located; just a mere 5 minute walk west of the station. I immediately surpassed it though, however, to consume myself a supper in a chip shop that my *girlfriend had been raving about, a few minutes further along the road. Her enthusiasm was absolutely warranted; I can confirm that The Whethersby Whaler is a MUST if you appreciate a good chippy. The building from the outside looks like a chain pub, it's that fucking enormous. But it's superb. I devoured a battered sausage and had a portion of mushy peas splodged over my jockeys whips, and it was absolutely perfect. I walked back up to Nethermoor feeling satisfied and my body a little more balanced, having been necking 7+ % Belgian trippels and Scottish bourbon stouts on the journey up.

*I should probably explain. My before anyone else supports a football club called Worcester City (who coincidentally are going bust) and thus has previously visited a couple of times. She's not a random visitor of nondescript Yorkshire towns or some strange chip-shop-hopper.

In terms of stadia relating to the league, it would be harsh but fair to claim that I have saved the worse until last. Nethermoor Park isn't offensive or ugly in the same way that I find Braintree or Boreham Wood, but it is incredibly basic. I dislike non-league grounds that are devoid of any cover or elevation behind either goal. I can accept it as part of the parcel at Step 3 + 4 and below, but I expect it as a prerequisite at this level when you're hosting famous names like Tranmere, Wrexham, Grimsby and Dover. It might be acceptable when you're hosting the likes of Aldershot and Altrincham, but supporters like myself deserve to watch football in more luxurious circumstances.

There are a couple of smart seated stands down one side of the ground, whereas the other side has a few ramshackle terraces at either side. It's a pretty crap ground to watch football at to be honest, and being exposed to the elements in the second half, I can truly say it was the coldest ground I have ever watched football at. The notion of the north being in sub-artic conditions isn't just an exaggeration, it is a reality.

One thing I will concede though is that the club bar is excellent, and one we were made to welcome at by most of the locals. With two hand-pulled ale pumps, including a sessionable pale ale at £2.95, I was firmly impressed.

The Dover away following contingent comprised of most of the usual suspects, numerically reaching around 25 of us dotted around the ground. Reg Harris, the loveable old legend, was of course there, and kindly gave me a lift back to Leicester after the game (which would later prove costly to him). It's a waste of time even mentioning Chris Collings' presence - he continues his run of not missing a competitive game since Ed Heath was in power and systematically abusing children at Tory MP sex parties. Most surprisingly of all was Steven King making the game, he rarely makes them these days with his teaching comittments and coaching role within the Deal Town setup. I love Kingy. He's a massive bellend, he knows it, but his hashtag #banter with the opposition goalkeepers and his general remarks are the kind of matchday idiosyncrasies that make non-league football unique. I do miss him.

Of course, there were a number of norther exiles too, including Leeds resident Michael Cloke, who incidentally gave me a lift to one of my earliest Dover away games.

From start to finish, Dover looked at ease and comfortably edged this encounter in all areas of the field. Quite simply this team is such an efficient well-oiled machine and I never feel anything but confident we will outscore opponents. We have such potent attacking players and a gifted visionary playmaker in Nicky Deverdics (who surely must feature as one of our greatest midfielders of all time after the few seasons he's had) that we can mask over some of the lack of quality in between defence and attack, and our general hoofball nature of play. We play to our strengths and while we're not pretty most of the time, we can be very creative and artistic going forward that we can be very enjoyable to watch.

Take the first half for example. We could and should have killed and buried the game off by half time, we were creating that many chances. While I'm not Stefan Payne's greatest lover (too much of a baller type, too often can sulk, has been liable to violent outbursts in important games) he's a tremendous outlet, but if he was truly clinical his goal tally would even higher than it already is. He did give us the lead on the half hour mark, latching onto a customary masterful threaded ball from Deverdics, prodding the ball past the en-rushing Drench in goal (a habit of his that would backfire in hilarious circumstances late on). The goal prompted myself and Kingy to celebrate in the faces of a group of local chavs who had taken it upon themselves to antagonize and goad us throughout the entire game. He had remarked to them earlier on""I know we are extremely sad travelling all this way to watch a non-league game on a Tuesday night. But seriously, how fucking shit must your life be if you've just come here to abuse us, a harmless gaggle of misfits? Fuck off and get back home and watch Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles". I know it was sad to chomp back and respond at them, but it felt very satisfying nonetheless.

Our task for finishing the job for the evening was made much easier a few minutes later, when a home player decided to take an early bath by recklessly lunging in on Ricky Modeste. Naturally, the home fans cried of a harsh decision but I think the video highlights have vindicated it. His football off the ground, his other leg was trailing. It wasn't a pleasant challenge. But credit to Ricky for selling the challenge as theatrically as he usually does. He's a great asset in more ways than one.

It was Ricky whom set up the game clincher 15 minutes from time. He floated in a ball from the right hand side, that a Dover head managed to brush against and divert it into the path of that man Nicholas Deverdics, whom duly sided-footed the ball mid-air into the opposite side of the goal. Incredibly, if the Dover live text feed is to be believed, it was the 30th goal that he has either scored or assisted this season. Eat your heart out, Pavel Nedved.

Kingy had placed a bet on Stefan Payne to be final goalscorer at 5/1. As he remarked to him during the pretext of a late corner about this, Payne laughed along with him and retorted he'd try his best to help him. A few minutes from time, Payne granted him his wish. The hapless Drench, whom arguably should have sent off early on for hauling down Ricky Miller outside the area, decided once again to venture off up the field. All the way to the halway line, in fact, in a feeble attempt to intecepted Tyrone Sterling's hoofed but innocuous clearance. Instead, Payne tackled him to the ball, promptly whizzed passed the remaining defender, leaving himself with a free 30 yard sprint on goal. Unfortunately there was no showboatedness in the manner that he prodded the ball into the guarded net. As I remarked on the forum,

he had about 50 acres and 50 years worth of time to finish off the third. Should have flopped his cock out, windmilled, posed like the rock, performed the moonwalk, then crouched down on his hands and knees before nodding the ball past the line with his noggin. Disappointing behaviour."

And that was that. We made light work of a side whom are usually resilient and hard to play against. If Miller and Payne actually appeared to like to each other, communicate to each other and actually pass to one another, we could have made it an even more handsome scoreline. But I actually think the incoherent nature of their relationship works? I can't theorize behind it, but either way, between them we have a very talented partnership who create many chances and always look like we have a number of goals between us.

I am often regarded as one of the most negative whining Dover fans and with some justification. But I honestly believe this side is capable of getting to Wembley twice this season and it should be within our targets. We may not deserve it, club attendances are absolutely appalling, but we have a team who when you objectively look at it, never look inferior to any opponent we come against. There are games where we are purely self-desctructive in defence, but they are usually the exception rather than the rule.

As for Guiseley itself. Mixed thoughts. Some strange actions by their supporters, with odd chants such as "same old Dover, always cheating" for the third meeting we've had in our entire history. But many of them wished us luck and thanked us for coming upon exiting the ground, which was nice.

I hold nothing against them but the ground itself is boring and I won't be making great hurdles to keep coming back in the future, although I hear there are a couple of fanastic ale pubs nearby and it seemed a pleasant enough place from the small scope I saw of it.

Poor Reg. Agreeing to drop me off via the slightly slower M1 route, we encountered many unexpected junctions closures, meaning we had an entire detour throughout Yorkshire. I ended up back in Leicester at quarter to 1, an hour later than expected, while he eventually got back at half 4 in the morning after a tactical nap at Watford Services. All worth it though, ain't it? White army.