Game Thirty Three - Dagenham & Redbridge Home (FA Cup Second Round)

29th November 2008

FA Cup second round day and another potential banana skin as this time League Two side Dagenham & Redbridge would be making the trip to the Walkers Stadium.

For this game I decided to make the short journey to the city centre by train and so ended up venturing past Nelson Mandela park and the Tigers ground with the new main stand looming out from the old car park. Personally I think that the new construction is the worst thing that the club could do. Yes it will boost attendances and all that but they will lose a great deal of the older fans who have been around since the glory days and like to stand. Plus add the increased costs of season tickets, lack of intimidation from the fans being on top of the players and new stadium syndrome and I wouldn't be suprised if the club started to struggle a bit.

As I made my way past the ground, I bumped into a couple of Dagenham fans who thought that that was our ground and were waiting for the turnstiles to open? I was almost insulted and was tempted to leave them there when they asked if this was the football stadium but instead walked with them to the ground.

At the ground I met up with Helen and Jobber, before heading into the megastore to take advantage of the 25% offer and stock up on bits and bobs. After that we bumped into Jodie and I ended up waiting with her for Chloe and Bert to arrive before we all made our way in. I was planning on heading to the back of SK1 with some of the FT crew like at the previous FA Cup tie but was talked into sampling the L1/K block experience insead. A game of 'dodge the steward' ensured as every seemed to want to check my tickets. Nightmare.

The game started at quite a pace and it was clear from the off that Dagenham hadn't come here to sit back and play for the draw. They sensed a shock was on the cards and they were going to make the most of their opportunity to claim the column inches in the morning papers. In fact it took only nine minutes for the visiting fans to have something to cheer as a well worked move down the right saw the ball turned in by Matt Ritchie, who incidentally put in the best performance I've seen at the Walkers so far this season. The guy was everyone and instrumental to what turned out to be a classic cup tie.

However the lead lasted less than a minute as Nicky Adams played the ball through to Fryatt who controlled it beautifully and lashed it past the keeper. Hard to know how to celebrate an equaliser against a league two side after the embarassment of conceeding in the first place....

From then on it was end to end stuff as both sides created chances with some great saves from Martin and Roberts keeping the scores down.


It wasn't long though before we found ourselves behind once again. That man Matt Ritchie unleashed a fierce drive from the edge of the area which Martin did well to save but the rebound was put in by the onrushing Strevens.

Again the lead didn't last long and four minutes later, a Fryatt cross was handled in the area and the man himself slotted home the resulting penalty to level things up. Two all with less than half an hour played. My £5 ticket was proving to be well worth the money!

More chances came and went with the keepers keeping up their fine form and goal line clearences making sure that we went into the break on even terms.

A much quieter start to the second half saw little goal mouth action until the hour mark when Edworthy chipped a beautiful ball over the defence and Fryatt matched it with a chip of his own over the keeper from a tight angle. Great finish to a great hat-trick and even Lil'Dave must have been impressed with that effort. Much easier to celebrate that one!
From then on, City looked a lot calmer and started to take a bit more control of the game, creating a few chances and restricting Dagenham to efforts from set pieces.

There was one moment to increase the heartbeats of the home fans though as a corner was cleared off the line by debutant Mark Davies at the near post.

Whilst it may not have been a deserved victory, it was still good enough to secure ourselves a place in the third round draw and another home tie, this time against Championship side Crystal Palace. Almost seems like a punishment than a reward for getting through.

All in all though, it was a cracking cup tie and credit must go to Dagenham and Redbridge for their approach to the game. They played some great football and if they can reproduce performances like that, promotion is surley not out the question for them and arguably they left the Stadium that day as the happier set of fans.... and boy do we know how that feels after narrow defeats to Chelsea and Fulham twice.... disappointed but proud as hell.

Next game ahead, the one we wanted..... Anfield!