Upminster Daggers - Dagenham and Redbridge FC Fan Site

Dagenham and Redbridge

3

 Benson 33

Strevens 85

Benson 90 

FA Cup
Victoria Road

Saturday 1st December 2007 

PRE MATCH
With a large crowd of UDs expected, the 12.30 meet in the Yeoman was for once kept to.  The pub was very busy with West Ham fans for their game with Chelsea on the box.  Unfortunately some of these behaved in a pretty moronic fashion as they watched their team slip to defeat.  Yoofff decided that a couple of bottle of Rose were the order of the day to get things started, and proceeded to finish these off and then fail to make the game due to his state.  He was last seen on a District Line train heading west out of Dagenham East.  Middle also took offence to a certain someone stealing a sausage from the plate of his all day breakfast!!  On the final whistle of the TV game a swift departure was made for the tube, where for once London Underground provided a good enough service for us to arrive befoe kick off.

ATTENDEES
A good turnout for this FA Cup Tie.  Dogva, Middle, Browns, Stew and Chappie from the regulars and Gobless (sorry Gobless your attendance rate now excludes you from the regulars), Saviloa, Bobby and Hoggy from the rest.  Yooofff was planning to go but as mentioned above, is probably lying on the banks of the Thames in Richmond now.

CROWD
A pretty poor turnout of just below 1,500, which included 270 odd from the Midlands.  For an FA Cup 2nd round game this is not great.  We are not going to start criticising the Club, but someone needs to look at ways and ideas for boosting attendances.  Atmosphere was ok considering the numbers, and the Harriers fans made some decent noise.

GAME
A pretty good cup tie.  We started slowly and gave away our now compulsory goal from a set piece.  We worked our way back into the game and were level at the break thanks to a great strike from Benno.  In the second half we were generally on top but needed a couple of top saves from Robbo to prevent them scoring on the break.  Just when the cost of a replay was being calculated we came up with two well worked goals from Strevs and Benno to seal it and put us in the hat.

POST MATCH
The Post Match entertainment was a little strange.  It was only on the tube back that we realised most of us had not seen a home win all season in a first team game (most of us missed the Lincoln game through cricket).  Therefore we had forgotten how to celebrate a home win as the Gravesend game was about 7 months ago!!  However, after a few beers most people remembered.  Stew had to shoot off to some trendy party (he is no longer the hero of the masses), while the rest of us stayed for the Yeoman Closing Down Party, the Brewery having chosen an excellent time of year for the pub to undergoe a refurb.  The party consisted of a disco and karaoke.  Most were to drunk to take part by the time it actually started, but Gobless and Chappie managed to take to the stage for a quick number, while Saviloa tried to invade them having managed to trip up over a chair leg.  Not sure what time everything came to an end!!