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Ryman Premier League
Saturday 26th February 2000
Daggers 2 St. Albans City 1
A big crowd arriving early in anticipation of an afternoon of entertaining football. And we weren't disappointed.
The first half settled down very quickly and although there were moments of goal-mouth action most of the game was played in the midfield where it was contained by both sides working hard without creating any clear cut chances. The Daggers' problem seem to lie in the fact that they lacked width with no-one at all on the right and on the left was Youness Nabil who was playing too deep to make any great impact. St Albans should have recognised these shortcomings and taken advantage but they didn't and when the score was 0-0 at the break (for only the second league match at home this season) I had mixed feelings of relief and frustration.
In the second half the home side started as it had finished the first and were caught napping as Newell was lobbed from the edge of the area. Suddenly I sensed a cue for a step up in the home sides game. And I wasn't let down.
A few tactical changes and an inspired substitution and the Daggers were back in control. Youness didn't look happy on the right but it certainly made the whole team look more balanced and with Mark Keen winning most of the aerial battles everything was fine.
It was Tim Cole who headed the equaliser from a corner and with five minutes to go Junior decided to relieve the tension and pressure on the home support and put us ahead.
It was a well fought display, the many bookings were mainly for dissent rather than anything more sinister. David Pratt of St Albans was sent off in the dying minutes, he probably didn't deserve it but it gave us something to smile about.
At 4.45 Dagenham & Redbridge were 16 points clear of Chesham, so as far as I'm concerned everything is going to plan.
Ryman Premier League
Friday 4th February 2000
Purfleet 2 Daggers 0
Please choose one of the past reports below as they say exactly what happens everytime we play Purfleet and as the team couldn't be bothered, neither can I
League
(December 1997)
League
(December 1998)
Team: Newell, Cole, Naylor, Bodley (Nabil), Matthews, Terry (McDougald), Payne, Cobb, Shipp, Jones, Heffer