“Just a Pub Team from Essex…Now a Pub Team in League One”

It seems only right to start my escapade into the blog-fi world by smugly pronouncing Dagenham and Redbridge as a Coca-Cola NPower League One side. Yes it was bloody ages ago now (well under two weeks) and yes most people are dwelling over what team they have been drawn in their World Cup sweepstake at work (Algeria…not sure why I bothered) but I stop you right there and ask you to yell the words League One to the nearest person next to you. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to move on just yet and why should I?

If anything, I want to scream it down the throats at every person that doubted us, every person that wrote us off because of that most illustrious of football statistic: Average attendance. For anyone that is a regular reader of the ‘The Football Forum’, BigDaveCUFC was as quick as Ryan Taylor’s header to claim that “one relegation spot has already been taken”. Luckily for Dave, these kind of comments rarely come back to haunt the perpetrators because in nine months time, I won’t remember and to be honest I won’t care. Ironically this time it will, unless the blog disappears and catches up with those Rotherham fans leaving so quick…they missed the fireworks!

But isn’t this the one time that we can stop being the nice little team from Essex and gloat a little? I’m not advocating a ultra character transformation, just a week where we can stick our fingers up to the people that instantly cast us off as some tinpot Essex outfit that will get relegated without any research or consideration. If not fingers, then a polite reminder at the extraordinary club that you are so lucky to support. That West Ham fan at work that belittles you for supporting such a small team, or that Barnet fan that said you would fizzle out after Christmas, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to give abit back. They probably won’t give a flying monkeys but it’s nice to swim in your own self-content for a change isn’t it?

Okay I'll remove the tongue out of my cheek a little because the fact is that not many of us will. We are a very self-deprecating lot. We don’t brag, we don’t patronise, we just get on with our job quietly in the corner. While the quiet zone was benignantly intruded by 13,000 fans two week ago, it will soon blow away and what will be left will be John Still looking for the next batch of non-league stars to help forge a team that is capable of staying up. The vital question therefore is can we do it?

Of course we can. People that know me probably won't have met such a pessimist so this sudden burst of optimism has even got my eyelids blinking sporadically but we have plenty of reasons to be confident. We have John Still, one of the best managers in the league, we have a narrow pitch plus a direct style that won’t let these League One supremos play us off the park so easily and finally we seem to have fate tagging along with us. When cult hero Graeme Montgomery scored that last gasp winner against Burton., don’t tell me that you didn’t just start to think the script was already written. What if we are the lucky few, the lucky bunch of supporter's that get to witness the second coming of another Wimbledon story as Roberts put it in one of his post-match interviews. Roberts certainly brings the "Crazy Gang" element to the fairytale while a return for Ashley Vickers may give us the bite that we desire. Perhaps I’m treading into fantasy land although I'm pretty sure I made that leap when I arrived at Wembley last Sunday.

What about the other Essex teams within the non-league pyramid? I hope that Dagenham and Redbridge can act as an inspiration, a incentive for other Essex teams currently toiling away, that league football is possible . My only hope when I started supporting Daggers following their promotion from the Ryman League was to one day see us become a football league club and yet at twenty one years old, I’m about to embark on trips to Hillsborough, The Valley and St Marys. John Still has proven that success can be obtained without throwing pots of money, without ridiculous wages or hiring a famous Swede but with hard graft and an abundance of character. Telford, Hornchurch and more recently Salisbury show the dangers of trying to ‘buy’ the league. One of the purposes of this blog is to illustrate the events which took place at Grays Athletic, Canvey Island and Hornchurch but also show how they have started to turn their fortunes around. I leave you with a video from last Sunday that shows the final whistle celebrations and a scruffy student about to weep like a girl. There is a week before the fixtures come out, Have a swim and enjoy it!

SOTD