Non league day part Two

Chelmsford City 2-3 Dover Athletic

Baz with the aid of the AA Route planner had told us that it was a mere 19 miles from Stortford to Chelmsford and that on paper at least, it was a simple enough journey. However as ever with this type of thing it wasn't quite as straight forward. Our journey started well enough as we went through Stortford town centre then ended up in the country side of Essex with very few road signs to aid us. As we munched our way through various sandwiches and pasta salads we started to think we may have gone wrong. You would have thought that there would have been a fair few cars full of hoppers making the trip but it seemed as if we were the only car on the road. Then just as the beads of sweet started to appear on Baz's brow due to the thought of getting us lost and a second kangaroo court in a day we saw a sign for Chelmsford. We were going the right way! Although it had taken us 5 miles longer than Baz had planned for. This time a vote of 2:1 found Baz guilty." Bollocks" came the defence from the dock in the back seat. 

On every hop i have been on there is always one club that doesn't quite plan their leg of the day quite as diligently as they perhaps should have done. Step forward Chelmsford City. Firstly the parking arrangements weren't too great, although a great piece of parking from Mr Del Colle allowed us to get a prime spot right next to the exit. Shortly after this we discovered that the club had only opened one turnstile and there must have been a good 30-40 folk in the queue when we arrived and this was before the two buses full of hoppers had turned up (the buses left Stortford 15 minutes after the end of the first game) All this led to the game being delayed by 10 minutes to get everybody in. For this i don't blame Chelmsford City, i think the hop organisers underestimated the amount of punters doing the hop and that although it isn't very far between the first two games the roads aren't too great.

Chelmsford's ground is also an athletics stadium. I have been to quite a few of these type of stadiums which try to accommodate both sports and i would say that Chelmsford's is by far the best i have visited and gets the balance between the two as good as you can do in my opinion. The fact that there are two stands very close behind each goal means that fans can get a bit of an atmosphere going.

As soon as we got into the ground my impressions of the club changed. They have clearly spend a fair bit of money on there facilities and the whole set up is quite smart. The programme was £2.50 and is one of the best i have very seen at non league level. It is certainly a hell of a lot better than most League Two ones i got last season and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in the Championship. It did carry quite a few adverts but that was more than offset by the sheer amount to read in it. The club shop was situated just to the right of the turnstiles as you walk in and did a great range of stuff. I snapped us a badge for £3.50. It is here that also got our first view of the club mascot!

The Chelmsford Parrot

As we were milling around just outside the very smart looking club bar we heard that the kick off had been delayed by 10 minutes, but that wasn't all we heard.
"Lee, Lee" came a cry from behind us. It was our new friend Gary and he had found us to tell Lee that there was a programme stall inside the club house and that it was really worth checking out. We went in to check it  out and it really was a decent enough stall with quite a few programmes dating back to pre war and pretty much everything you could think of. The clubhouse itself was spacious, with club memorabilia all over the walls. The large screen was showing the Scotland v Czech Rep European Championship qualifier, but enough of that crap. We had some decent football to watch.

Felice has a bit of an affinity with Dover Athletic (ie he has been through it on his way to France on holiday) So we went over to the far side to stand with the travelling black and white army. The stand we were in was a covered temporary terrace but it did allow you to get a decent atmopshere going. The Dover fans welcomed us and seemed quite chatty and seemed quite surprised that a group of Lincoln fans had made the trip down to see all three matches.
The Dover fans were in fine voice and were really up for this game.And they raised the volume up a notch when  Harry Barker stabbed in from close range to give them a 2nd minute lead. The joy was short lived though however when Chelmsford were award a penalty on 7 minutes which was converted by David Rainford. After the cat and mouse of the opening game it was good to have such an open match on our hands.

Dover fans celebrate the opening goal

Both sides seemed to throw caution to the wind and create chances. Dover retook the lead on 12 minutes when George Purcell outpaced the last defender and dinked the ball past Searle whose positioning for the goal could have been better and i am not totally sure if he need to rush of his line like he did. The rest of the half went by quite quickly as both sides continued to make chances. The home side came close to a second equaliser when they hit the side netting  but Dover held out
HT 1-2

The main stand

We took a stroll round to the area outside the bar so the guys could have a fag, or a as the cool cats at Rampton call it "A biffter". Felice was giving up smoking after our trip to Celle in 2009 and even as recently as our trip to Cray Wanderers last year, but he announced that he is stopping after his trip to Paris next week or so. I was going to ask the Blue Square bet promotional bet girls strolling round as to what odds i could get on him quiting the "biffters" but i am pretty sure that they would have given me whatever odds i asked for.  While here i also saw a Barnet fan getting way to close to what i assume was a WAG. I hope she didnt get to close. She was waaayyyyy too nice to be near anything from Barnet.

"So who the f**k are Barnet you freak?

We were stood at the opposite end of the ground for the second half which was a terrace roughly the same size as the first but without a roof on it.This was quite pleasant as it was quite a hot day and the stand gave you a decent enough view of the action. The pace of the game slowed down a little and it seemed as if the homeside were running out of ideas. Dover were happy to sit back and try to hit City on the break. Dover looked the more likely to score from set plays and they were getting plenty of them as the home sides frustrations grew and gave away plenty of free kicks. About half way through the half i took a walk around to get some pictures of the ground and due to the lay out of the ground its quite a walk.

Dover fans second half.

Chelmsford fans 2nd half

As i was walking back down the side of the pitch to the left of the away fans Dover got the third goal. It was as untidy as they come following a goal mouth scramble but they all count. Billy Bricknall with the final touch in the 71st minute for the record. At 1-3 up you would have thought that it would have been game set and match to Dover but for some reason they seemed to try and hit the self destruct button. Fair play to Chelmsford who suddenly woke up but it really did look as if Dover were almost letting them come on to them.

There was to be plenty of drama in the final few minutes. Chelmsford were awarded their second penalty of the match when Joe Benjamin was tripped in the box. The resulting spot kick was well saved by Jaimez-Ruiz (Venezuela's number one according the Dover fans) After this there seemed to be confusion as to whether the ref had signaled for the kick to be retaken. He hadn't and was pointing for a corner to be taken. Whether the Dover players were thinking about what they were going to have for tea that night i don't know, but they weren't concentrating on the corner as Kenny Clarke was allowed to go unchallenged as he headed the ball back across goal and into the corner to give the home side a glimmer of hope.

The home side launched everything they had at the Dover goal but the defence held out. This was a decent game and played in front of a good sized crowd. We bid our farewells to the Dover fans and wished them well for the season. They in turn wished us all the best for our game at Braintree and warned us about the stadium. Would the Imps make it three away wins on the hop? Would the game be as good as this one had been? And is Braintree as bad as the other fans have said on the hop? We were about to find out. One thing was for sure, as well left we heard a "see you at Braintree Lee" yep it was Gary, we stopped for a very brief chat as he met Barry and Felice but before he could get into full flow on South East groundhopping we had made a dash for the car.