Well, we loose our takings for the day, in excess of around 10 grand! Yeah cheers to the Conference for the Bond!
Rocking on, with no game listed for us. Some of us die hard
fans, were called on again to you know, keep the club looking sweet, by taking
paint brush, roller and tray in hand. So as I rock up the club at just after
10:30 in the morning. I look across the into the park, and see our squad are
clearly not taking this Saturday as a
day of leisure, instead our Jamie Lawrence is putting the squad through a good
beasting, and ensuring the fitness levels are kept to a high standard for the
battle of Chelmsford!
 |
| That'll make the game a bit harder then.... |
Leaving the squad to it! I arrive to see the same old faces doing the same hard graft. Myself, Taz and Mr X brushes in hand set to work, and give the Curva East a little face lift in amber/ canary yella-you decide when you see it. A couple of hours pass and the job is done. The Curva East looks a decent glow in the dark yella. On completion of the works, Mr X reckons it’s a job well done and rewards us with Bacon Sarnies- we all love the bacon ! Oh yes Mr Duke turns up just on time as the Bacon is being served, well 20 mins before but we don’t count that! Better late than never eh Dukey Boy !
Right then boys, so we have er finished for the day then,
what are we gonna do with ourselves? Go home to our wives? Go and sit in our
arm chairs and wank off to pop idols or dancing on ice? Fuck no is the answer
we are instead going where no non-league fan has ever been before....Dorking
Wanderers. Yes you heard me correctly Dorking Wanderers. Now then you
non-league lovers. If you want to know more about this team then you can google
or Wikipedia it yourselves. But let me tell you this, they were formed in 1999.
So there’s not a great deal of history there as a club, but they’ve won a few
titles in their short existence.
We grab up our gear and make tracks for Dorking. John boy
joins Milsy, and I’ve got the rest of the crew. Taz sadly can’t join us, for
some reason he decides to head off home and polish up the Cube ready for one of
them car shows, which he is due to head up to Sunday morning. So we make tracks and go up the A217
overtaking a Sutton fan in his black cab on the way! We exit off down towards
the place where they make Viagra-Dukey fills us in on his knowledge and wisdom,
on the subject of Viagra. We then head down past Boxhill. We pass Brockham and chuck
a right at the cock roundabout, head down the A24 and before we know, and I
nearly miss the turn we have arrived at ten past two. With 50 minutes to kill,
we make haste for the bar. Yes a ground we’ve never been to before and that’s
the first thing we do, we are after all have a reputation to uphold.
 |
| Lining up for the off..... |
Refreshed with a few tinnies for the crew, some 10 minutes
later and John Boy and Millsy decide to join us. Now let me describe the ground
as best I can. Its basic, but its ok. I
mean its a league below Carshalton Athletic, and it’s a better set up than their
shit pit! You’ve got a perimeter fence which runs around the ground giving a
rather rustic feel. You’ve got two sets of changing rooms, which are best
describes as glorified sheds with a little extra. Walking further round you find a small stand
which accommodates about 50 or so seats and even a small section for those of the
committee. Then you’ve got the bar/tea hut in one, and also an area with sky
sports. Oh and a tannoy system that is currently better than ours. Looking back
towards the exit the landscape is one of the rolling hills of Box Hill. To the left of there is a cricket club, and
beyond another football pitch. So all in all not a bad little set up for this
level of football. I my humble opinion I’ll give it a Gandermonium 3 out of 5
for effort.
Time pushing on, a ten to three and I take a little look
through the programme, again a decent effort for a quid. A total of 20 pages, 5
pages of adverts and the remaining dedicated to information and statistics
dedicated to the first, reserve and youth level set up. Now my eye is caught on the team line up for
Dorking Wanderers, and two names stand out to me. The first being Luke Pidgeon,
now I’m sure as houses are houses he used to be a Bobbin. The second name that
stands out like a neon sign in Vegas is that of none other than Glen Boosey!
Jesus, the last time I saw him, was at Casuals a few year back in the Surrey
Senior Cup, the left foot legend.
 |
| Spot the ex-Sutton player.... |
The big hand at 12 and the little hand at 3, it’s time for
kick off. The players come out and form a line, as part of the respect campaign
and do the traditional handshakes, and head off for the toss of the coin. Both
teams stay as they are and kick off gets underway. Now bearing in mind this is
an F.A Cup Extra Preliminary Round, I was expecting a pretty face passed game. But
I was wrong, so very wrong indeed. To be fair Dorking within the first 15-20
minutes looked the brighter and better of the two teams, and to be fair to them
knocking the ball around at a casual rate. But not really pressing Crowborough
hard enough. There is one thing that is
good about this level of football, you get to see some real robust and slightly
naughty challenges going in about every three minutes, the sound of a smashed
shin pad is always the giveaway. A discussion
goes on between the firm as to who will get the first yellow of the game and we
go 8 and 9 from Dorking, and some 5 minutes later and 8 gets booked for a
naughty challenge. Both teams in the
first half continue to block each out, nothing pretty here, just basic
football, hoofs from the back, up to the midfield and not much else going
on. I start to loose interest; I even
look up into the sky as two replica 1st world war planes fly over
head. But my focus is back on the game when after some 30 odd minutes have
passed, Dorking finally have a shot on goal, but it’s weak and is easily saved
by the Crowborough keeper.
The ref blows up for half time, and it’s time for a brew,
diet coke, beer, hot dog, whatever takes your fancy really. Once more enjoying
the surroundings and I turn to my left, and who rocks up for the 2nd
45, none other than one of our co-authors, Mr Totts ! Now he duly informs us,
that he did in fact get lost on his way here, and had to revert to his Sat Nav
whilst out on his Mountain Bike. Now for a minute he had us all fooled, we were
under the impression that he had ridden said bike from Sutton. But no, no he
got the train down with his bike and decided to climb up the hill and then drop
down into Dorking but got a bit lost on the way. Just a little stretch out said Totts as he
heads back to the bar for another well earned tin of Carlsberg!
 |
| Some Real FA Cup action! |
With the 2nd half under way, it’s pretty much the
same as the first. Just more fouls, more cards, even more missed challenges by
the ref, and even a couple of elbows thrown in for good measure. Dukey was in
his element. Let me tell you this, I’ve never seen this boy look so happy, how
he loves a robust leg chop challenge. A
couple of subs are made by both teams, Boosey comes on for Dorking and it was difficult
to tell at first if it was in fact him; he’d grown a goatee beard, and grown
his hair back, I thought this must been some kind of imposter , you know one of
those wanna be legends, but yeah it was him.
You could only tell it was him by his left foot being top notch, and
well his right being not so top notch.
The game went on and it all got a bit dull. There were a couple of
chances in the dying minutes for both to go and win it, but the final ball just
wasn’t there.
The game finished nil-nil so it goes to Tuesday night for the
replay.
Now the firm had mentioned about heading off into Dorking
for the night, but a sudden mention of strippers and a Weatherspoons, meant
they were on their way to the bright lights of Epsom. A short car journey back
into Epsom, and they arrived into the first establishment, The Marquis. Now if
you roll back the clock and go back in time approx a year or so ago. We headed
into Epsom to watch a Reserve game of football and our drinking quest started
in The Marquis, and well the night ended up with us all in a strip joint down
the other end of the high street at 2 AM. Will this happen again? I shall say only
this, what goes on tour, stays on tour. But yes, they will probably end up back
in the cat house...
....I love shit football, it makes everything in life so much better....
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