Dartford v Dorking Sat 5 Mar 2022

[The 5th Searcher]

An excellent end to end fast paced game yesterday which would’ve been thrilling for any neutral fans watching.
Dorking are an excellent side there is no mistaking that, they are very fast and dangerous on the attack but I have to admit I was actually surprised how poor they defended yesterday, our forwards tore them apart.

Credit where credit is due I thought George Porter was superb yesterday, I’m not a Porter fan at all but yesterday he was on fire taking his 2 goals superbly and had the keeper not tipped his quick spinning shot over he would’ve had a hat trick.

Jayden Sweeney I thought was exceptional yesterday on his debut and considering he only joined the team on Thursday you would’ve thought he’d been here for ages so he gets my MOTM vote.
Jordan Wynter was also superb all game and came a very close second for the MOTM vote, 2 quality fullbacks.

Yesterday was finally some of the best football we’ve played since our 10 or 12 game run at the start of the season, hopefully we can carry this on now for the rest of the season.

Hopefully Luke Allan’s injury isn’t to bad as he was playing well up until he limped off.

COYD’s

[DA Mikey]

Previous posts have accurately covered the game, so just a few speculations on those comments…
Glad that Wilks got appreciated - he has been excellent for us this season.
The ref. Kept a steady head throughout the match. Rarely get praise, but felt he was fair and consistent yesterday.
Had a quick chat with Luke Allen after the game. Said he’d suffered a groin strain but seemed positive that it wouldn’t keep him out for long.
Absolutely agree that while Dorking were decent, decision making was at times their undoing, playing unwaveringly as they did from the back. There are justifiable times to ‘get rid’ (Everton did the same for large spells on Thursday against Borrow’em wood).
George Porter. Two 1vs1 chances converted which both opened up a thrilling encounter and sealed the deal. His best turn-out in a Dartford shirt.

Finally, thanks to those involved in organising the race night. Seemed less well attended than previous, but still a good craic and a couple of WINNERS (not that I’ve seen a penny of it as the missus came along!)

Certainly a better Sunday than following a trip to Suffolk this season. Wherever we finish, we’ve gotta go unbeaten at home now.

COYD

[Park Life]

Had a quick chat with Luke Allen after the game. Said he’d suffered a groin strain but seemed positive that it wouldn’t keep him out for long.
COYD

Hope that's right mate.
Luke has had so much bad luck with injuries and he's been playing really well so hope to see him back asap.

[JCJ]

Great result and fully deserved, George Porter was my MOM and could have had a hat trick yesterday let’s hope he keeps that form for the remaining of the season,

I thought Dianaga took his goal very well and he certainly knows where the goal is, New guy Jayden Sweeney looks a very good addition to the squad in fact I thought the back four all played well and Jordon Wynter in my opinion is absolute quality without doing anything spectacular, Disappointed in Jebb free kick yesterday but he certainly made up for it with some telling passes which if I’m not mistaken lead to two goals, Luke Allen was looking on form until unfortunately he got injured hope it’s not to bad. Then you also look at our bench yesterday your see how strong our squad is.

We can still win this league Dorking have some games coming up especially Ebbsfleet away can’t believe I be wanting Ebbsfleet to win that day,

Onwards to Chippenham on Saturday and hopefully another 3 points.

[KSTDART]

Sorry they are late but here are the goals from yesterday . Messed the first one up

[Babylon]

One thing I forgot in my original post,
The miss of the day ...it has to be the Dorking player who smashed the ball over our crossbar from 5/6 yards out
just before the interval , very fortunate for us but even so a dreadful miss.

[ozymandias]

Great performances all over the pitch and not just from our lads. Front line was excellent throughout and three cracking goals to beat them. First time I'd seen Ody Alfa play and I thought he had a cracking first half. Two cracking goals from George and a perfect finish from Marcus.
Second half for me had Kalvin upping his game and he frightened them. Defense played so well and the new lad Jayden had an excellent game, apart from getting caught a couple of times his speed was electric. Shame we lost Luke as I felt we could have gone on to get 5/6 goals. This is no disrespect to Keiran, yes, we know he's not at his best but he put in a fair stint when he got on.
First half performance by Ody was getting my vote until the second when I thought Kalvin was a class watch.
MOTM for me Kalvin Kalala

[rick]

Very striking (to me) photo, for my 300th post

[Ajaxman DFC]

Difficult to choose MOTM as everyone played their part but I narrowed it down to three. Kalvin Kalala, Jayden Sweeney and George Porter.
I'm really pleased the way the game went for George yesterday. I was very impressed with him during pre-season and could never understand why he's never got enough game time since. Infact, yesterday was the first time I saw him in the starting eleven in the league.
Apart from his excellent qualities on the ball he's a natural leader too.
Jayden Sweeney had a fantastic debut. Even more so considering he must have had barely no time at all to get to know his team mates. It's always great to see a player winning 50/50 tackles but some of those tackles Jayden won were actually 40/60.
But I've given my MOTM to Kalvin. He worked really hard trying to make things happen yesterday and took in the entire Dorking defence, to open the gap inwich he placed a brilliant pass into the path of George to run onto and score his second goal.
And then, just before full time, Kalvin stopped Dorking in their tracks by taking one for the team.

[Park Life]

Steve's post match interview:-

[Spike]

That was the best game of football I've seen all season. Darts were fantastic and I agree with Kingy that we deserved to have won by a bigger margin. The only disappointment on the day was the ref ignoring the foul that led to Dorking scoring and getting back into the game. That made it a lot closer than it should have been, but ultimately it didn't matter too much and we got the three points that we deserved.

Jayden Sweeney had an excellent debut which would normally have been more than enough to win MOTM, but for the fact that George Porter chose this occasion to put in a superhuman performance beyond that which you would expect of a mortal being. This was unquestionably the best I have ever seen George play in a Dartford shirt and he must surely be a nailed on winner of MOTM. That said, there wasn't anyone in a Dartford shirt who didn't play well and nice that we had a decent sized crowd there to see it too.

More of the same next week at Chippenham please lads.
COYD

[Park Life]

Match highlights:-

[ozymandias]

Loved watching that again. Ody's run down the right in the first half, excellent. Jayden's terrific performance for us. George's goals, Kalvin's second half.
The ref giving a free kick when he had his back to the incident involving George. How he could have given that was beyond me and the the silly bugger who ran onto the pitch and then ran off again cos no one was taking any interest whatsoever. A very funny incident, if stupid. That could have cost the club.
All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon.

[Trevor B]

Ozymandias said

the the silly bugger who ran onto the pitch and then ran off again cos no one was taking any interest whatsoever. A very funny incident, if stupid. That could have cost the club

Ozy this idiot who ran on the pitch that's not the half of it the worrying facture is the two incidents involving plastic bottles before this
First time their keeper picked up a bottle and handed it to the referee
Second time same thing again
I didn't see who threw either bottle or what/whom it was aimed at but the second one generated the regular older section of fans behind the goal to start shouting at the younger element of new fans who appear to be 10-15 years and think every thing is funny.
Ozy's comment "That could have cost the club" may be even more serious depending on the referee's report and how he treats it

[The 5th Searcher]

The club really does need to clamp down on some of these youngsters behind the goal because they are going to end up causing bigger issue’s for the club if they aren’t careful.
It’s fantastic some of the atmosphere they can create behind the goal when they fully get behind the team with their singing BUT they need to stop throwing things on the pitch whether it be bottles, flares or anything else and also stop leaning over the barrier getting right in the keepers face when he’s retrieving the ball. A few of the youngsters all started giving the keeper the w*nker hand gesture but their hands must have only been a few inches from his face to the point they was virtually touching his face. It won’t be long before either a keeper reacts to it or a referee makes a bigger issue of it.
The stewards need to actually start doing their jobs and do what they are paid to do which is keep an eye on the crowd and not stand around talking and drinking coffee.
They need to either start getting in amongst the fans behind the goal or stand directly behind the goal pitch side keeping an eye on the youngsters as some are getting out of hand, especially when they keep pushing & shoving each other thinking it’s funny.

[BAWArmy]

Completely agree - the few idiots behind the goal, while creating a good atmosphere are going to end up throwing all of that away and ruin it not only for themselves but for the club too. Somebody needs to have a polite word with them as when they are in full voice they are class.

Throwing things onto the pitch needs to be completely cut out, and as for the idiot that ran onto the pitch hopefully he's banned as we don't need people like that.

[Spike]

I would like to shake the hand of the person who stopped the pitch invading moron from jumping over the wall to escape the stewards. It was encouraging to see how the fans reacted to this idiot's behaviour as he was loudly booed and his capture was widely applauded.

I do understand the comments about the youngsters, but we must be careful not to tar everyone with the same brush as most of these lads are well behaved and bring a fantastic atmosphere to the club. In my opinion, you don't target an entire generation because of the behaviour of one or two. Much better to tackle the individual culprits, which wouldn't be that difficult if the stewards actually did a bit of stewarding and at the very least, stood in the right places. Throwing plastic bottles is pathetic and would almost certainly not happen if it was in full view of a steward. Even the most infrequent attendee at football matches would recognise where misbehaviour is likely to take place and 99 times out of a 100 any "trouble" is likely to come from groups behind the goals. Common sense would dictate that the stewards need only stand close to these groups and in the overwhelming majority of cases, their mere presence would likely be enough to deter any misdemeanours from occurring. As we've already said, most of the offenders are little more than kids who have yet to grow out of the tendency to misbehave whenever teacher has left the room. However, our stewards are rarely where they should be and often seem to take up positions as far away as possible from any problem areas. Most of the real stewarding at Princes Park is self-policing by the more sensible fans who have got the club's interests at heart. My brother, Park Life, is probably the best example of this as he frequently ends up doing what the stewards are supposed to be doing.

Stewarding is not a job I'd particularly want to do myself, but if I ever did decide to take it on and get paid for it, I would bloody well want to do it properly. I don't expect them to put themselves at risk or expose themselves to any danger, but I do believe that the sort of childish behaviour of throwing plastic bottles or fireworks would be discouraged if they stood in the right places and acted as a deterrent.

[Ring of fire]

...totally agree with all of the above. It also seems that Smoking on the Terraces is now on the increase. I gently reminded at least 1-2 that BPPP Stadium is a Non Smoking environment and they put out their fags on the floor. The e-cigarettes seem to give'em Cover and encourages more Smoking, including in the Toilets, with a pungent Smell of... Weeds & other Drugs?
Yes, Stewards should be placed in front of our young Darts Army to keep'em, within the Ground Rules!

[The Futures White]

I'm not sure where the club gets these stewards from but they don't seem to do a great deal on matchdays. It seems that they just turn up, don a high vis jacket and stroll around for a few hours doing very little just to earn a bit of money?. If they aren't supervised and given instructions during matches as to what they should and should not be doing they aren't going to do a great deal.

I was at the Brentford match last week and there were kids aged around 14/15 drinking pints on the terrace behind the goal. The stewards and the company that employs them need to up their game. If some of the Maidstone knuckledraggers start to play up when we face them next month and our stewards show the same level of interest as they usually do there could be big problems.

As small number of our younger fans have been embarrassing on occasions this season, both home and away, and it needs to stamped out before the issue gets out of control.

[The Duke]

The youngsters are the future [ long term] fans of the Club and should be encouraged to continue to support at the levels shown this season . The few idiots amongst them who throw bottles etc should be identified and given a one month ban with the priviso that a 2nd offence means a total ban [ every one deserves a 2nd chance ] . With effective stewarding [ currently not good enough ] backed up with Cameras to pick out the culprits this problem will go away , surely its better to be pro-active than wait for a major incident accompanied by a fine from the F A

I hope we " dont bury our heads in the sand " like Maidstone have !!!!!!!!!!!!!