2/09/08 - PRR: Broxbourne Borough V&E 1 Dulwich Hamlet 2

AS A BOY, I was always a big fan of One Man And His Dog, the BBC TV programme about sheepdog trials. If it was on the telly, I’d watch it avidly. I’ve never really been sure why. Whether this has anything to do with man’s ability to turning practically anything into a sporting contest, or whether I have an ingrained yearning to be a shepherd, is an internal debate I have never held with myself.

But ahead of Tuesday night’s Preliminary Round replays, as I perused the list of available fixtures to attend, I found myself looking for that solitary gentleman and his four-legged friend, or at least the spectating equivalent.

It occurred to me as I scanned the fixture list, that the biggest attendance I have ever witnessed for an FA Cup match was the 89,874 people who packed into Wembley for the clash between Portsmouth and Cardiff. The least-attended match saw 62 poor souls drift into Coles Park for the Extra Preliminary Round game between Harringey Borough and Wembley FC, the first game I attended on last season’s Road From Wembley adventure (Shortly to be published by Matador Publishing, click here to pre-order your copy).

I’d be unlikely to find a Preliminary Round Replay which could better my most-attended record, but could I shave a couple of heads off the least attended? Could I find an FA Cup match attended by just one man and his dog?

I did some homework on Tony’s English Football Site reviewing the average attendances for the teams who would be at home in the replays, and found my trump card. Broxbourne Borough V&E. They had a lot going for them. Their ground near Cheshunt was convenient for my route home from work in London, and their average attendance in the Spartan South Midlands Premier League this season was just 32. Whether a night time FA Cup replay against Isthmian Div One South Dulwich Hamlet would be enough to attract a better-than average crowd was probably dependent on how many Hamlet brought with them. For the first game the attendance was 164.

I awoke on Tuesday morning and on opening the curtains was delighted to see a torrential downpour outside. Long may that last I thought, figuring that meterological inclemency would be another attendance limiter. Indeed the rain appeared to get heavier as I drove from Braintree down the M11 towards London, and once on the Tube, was delighted to see people embarking at every stop with soggy umbrellas and wet shoulders.

At lunchtime I continued my attendance research and found that an average crowd of 32 was practically packed to the gunnels in comparison with the absolute least attended match of this season’s cup – a distinction held by the EPR game between Tokyngton Manor and Biggleswade United which drew just 24 paying punters.

But by the time the evening came and I made my way through Woodford and Chingford, en route to Cheshunt, the rain clouds had all dispersed and we looked set for a fine evening, a fact which left me cursing.

On arrival at Goffs Lane, the home of Broxbourne Borough, my plan seemed to be in tatters as the car park was so full of cars I had to park on a grass verge by the side of the ground. However on further inspection this seemed to be more down to the fact that there was a judo and jujitsu club tacked onto the side of Borough’s clubhouse – and legions of prepubescent Cheshunt would-be-ninjas were pouring in for a night in the dojo.

My spirits lifted. Perhaps the attendance record was still on. I paid my eight pounds for entry and programme and then peered inside Goffs Lane.

The ground is fully exposed to the elements on three sides. A bank of trees offering some protection off to the far side. At the turnstile end of the ground is a wooden shelter with rows of seating which runs from the goal, down to the corner flag and a short way up the line towards the dugouts. Just in front of the trees was a terrace made from steps of wooden decking on which sat a few rows of seating. A concrete perimeter of hardstanding circumnavigated the pitch. It was not much to look at, but slightly appealing in its unconventionality.

I was delighted to see that there were precious few in the ground at that stage. However I needed the loo and was on the prowl for some dinner, so I had to walk out of the ground, back through the car park and round to the front door of the clubhouse to get in, as irritatingly, there was no entry from the pitch side.

My heart sank as I passed over the threshold and it became evident that dinner would be nothing more than crisps from the bar. I bought a pint and a packet of ready salted and found a table at which to sulk and consume, while perusing an interesting programme packed with information and good stories.

After a while I was joined by a man with his young son, who I recognised from an article I had just read in the programme. The lad was Josh Gorton, an aspiring cub reporter, who has taken to covering games at Broxbourne this season and submitting them to the programme. I introduced myself as a former journalist and told him that for a 13-year-old I thought his reports were excellent. You can form your own opinion here.

We chatted about sports journalism right up until five minutes before kick off and then made our way back into the ground where to my horror, I found that the turnstiles had been ticking nicely, apparently there would be no low attendance record breaking attempts here.

What there was though, was the most ferocious game of football I have seen in the cup so far this year. No quarter was being given, although plenty was asked of the referee and in such fruity language that you half expected to see the Man From Del Monte prowling the perimeter.

Both teams were hurling themselves both around the pitch and into tackles like twenty-two whirling dervishes and the ball was skittling around like a pinball. Broxbourne were matching Hamlet physically, but didn’t seem to have the invention or time on the ball that the visitors enjoyed, although this was a marginal difference.

Something had to give, and after fifteen minutes, the available space on the pitch was increased by the reduction of the dervishes from twenty-two down to twenty, after a man apiece from both sides – Ryan Wade and Peter Martin – were given their marching orders after a post-foul retaliatory scuffle. Just as the dust from this was settling, Hamlet took the lead on sixteen minutes when Scott Simpson was freed on the edge of the Borough box and finished crisply into the bottom of the home net.

This wasn’t a development which instilled much confidence in the neutral observer that this would improve the quality of the game. Hamlet were far too competitive throughout, and much too tight at the back, to allow Borough the merest sniff of a chance, and for the remaining half hour we were subjected to some more rough stuff.

In the second half however, both teams started to puff and blow a bit more as the rigours of the stamina-sapping first forty five led to the game starting to stretch. Hamlet began passing the ball around more sweetly, to the delight of their hardcore support who had amassed behind the Borough goal. One supporter’s periodically-regular monotone cry of ‘Come on Dulwich’, really did put the dull in Hamlet.

The visitors had two excellent chances at putting the tie to bed, but both were squandered by a lack of composure in the finish, and with fifteen minutes to go, with more space on the pitch, and with the knowledge that only one goal was required to salvage the situation, Borough began to consistently force their way out of their own half for the first time.

With just ten minutes remaining, they picked up a free kick on the left-hand edge of the Hamlet box and the kick was drilled low into the danger area, taking the minutest of clips off the boot of substitute Matt Kearney, missing a forest of other legs and sneaking into the far corner of the net.

My underdog-loving heart soared briefly until my pessimistic brain snapped out a ‘Shut up you fool, this means extra time and pens’, back at it. The brain had a point. It had been a cold night, as a strong wind had been whipping across the exposed ground for most of the first half, and the sanctuary of the car and its heater was where my thoughts had been heading for most of the match.

I was salvaged by an almost instant riposte from Hamlet when Marc Cumberbatch rose majestically to nut home a corner with almost their next attack. The Isthmians, successfully regrouped, then saw out a frantic five minute battering from the Spartans and I was hovering by the exit as the final whistle blew.

But there was an encore, a highly appropriate one, when shortly after the whistle the Dulwich keeper Jamie Lunan, began the most aggressive celebration I have ever witnessed. Littered with profanity, malice and firmly directed at the beaten opponent. As the pot was about to boil over – I was stood by one home fan who had begun to clamber over the railing to go and ‘have him’ – the referee took control by calmly producing a red card and sending him off. The first post match dismissal I think I have ever seen.

Pacifist as I am, I was fairly incensed by this appalling display and actually considered waiting for the goalie to come past so I could hurl some abuse at him myself, but then decided that the car heater was the better bet.

Oh and the attendance? Tony’s English Football Site reported a figure of 96. I’d guessed at 100.

Comments

[Andy the Photographer]

Really nice to meet you on Tuesday night John, fantastic website ,absorbing read and some quality photography ..I hope our paths cross again ! Where are you off to next round ..Oxhey Jets V Dulwich Hamlet is my choice !

[John Stoneman]

Yes there is a nice one of you taking a nice one of me!