I'm afraid an old school manager is needed, not someone with Wenger stubbornness. With the quality of players and the budget available Dulwich Hamlet should be pissing this division.
Like Terry Brown at Margate last season?
I actually thought we played quite well for much of the game, considering the conditions and the degree to which several highly contentious or just plain wrong decisions went against us, but regardless of the poor pitch and poor officials we also contributed much to our own downfall with some costly lapses, and as ever we simply weren't ruthless or clinical enough in front of goal as plenty of chances were created without stretching the keeper enough. For a team with so much experience we look very naive at times, and are all too prone to collapse when things go against us.
The first major incident of the game went in our favour after just five minutes when Moss was blatantly shoved in the back by their captain as he chased a ball away from goal. There was nothing controversial about it, it happened right in front of me, and the ref got it spot on. However i can't help thinking their players' lengthy protestations of innocence may have panted a seed of doubt in the ref's mind and caused him to give nothing else in our favour afterwards. We only had ourselves to blame for throwing away our advantage all to cheaply after fifteen minutes. Brown attempted to find Clunis with an all too obvious pass out of defence which was intercepted by their right back on the halfway line, and within seconds they'd sliced effortlessly though our left flank allowing Tom Derry - briefly a Hamlet player during last year's 'Spring Slump' to set up his strike partner for an easy finish. Midway through the half we should have had a second penalty as McDonald was completely wiped out just inside the box by a defender lunging in recklessly from behind. It was a breathtakingly poor tackle, yet incredibly the ref just waved play on. Billericay immediately counter-attacked and won a free kick outside the corner of our box, and when this was pumped high and long beyond the far post a defender was penalised for pushing and booked without hesitation. (Not sure how their captain had earlier escaped a booking for an identical offence, and persistent dissent afterwards.) Hamlet appeared to have equalised right on half time as a high far post corner caused chaos in the goalmouth and Waldren lashed home the loose ball from a tight angle, but although the ref was initially happy with the goal his linesman on the far side flagged for a foul and the goal was chalked off.
The game had been short on quality on a terrible surface on which running with the ball or passing along the ground was a lottery. Early in the second half the tide turned irrevocably against the Hamlet when Hibbert was penalised for handball and Waldren, possibly feeling a persecution complex by this stage following his own disallowed goal, was red carded for his comments. The ball clearly hit our man on the arm, but his arm was flush to his side and it appeared a genuine attempt to chest the ball down as it reared up sharply off the rutted pitch. The penalty was converted and that was that. A fourth goal followed, but our ten men battled hard for some consolation as McDonald, a handful all match for the home defence, hit the post, then yet another penalty was refused a Scannell went down under a sliding challenge from a defender who got nowhere near the ball, but was penalised and booked for simulation instead. If that was a dive he should be working as a professional stuntman, he's wasted in semi-pro football.
Our heaviest defeat of the season, certainly not our worst performance, but despite the uncontrollable elements of playing surface and officials conspiring against us we should certainly have been able to make a closer contest of it against a decent but not outstanding side. We finally got the three man midfield that so many on here have been advocating recently; Dixon and Waldren both returned to join Carew, while Moss & McDonald were in a front three with Clunis, who was again marginalised on the left. I really can't understand that tactic at all; the full back soon twigged that he was never going to attack on the outside just jockeyed him until their winger dropped back and doubled up on him so he couldn't come inside either. He belatedly switched sides with McDonald in the second half after the game was gone, and McDonald got much more joy with his ability to go either side of his man.
One footnote was a bizarre new form of gamesmanship I've never seen before. Members of the home club's junior teams appeared to be delegated to drape two hi-viz bibs over the perimeter fence behind our goal at the start of the second half about a yard inside each post, apparently to act as 'sighters' for their strikers to aim for. This is the most absurd and pathetic piece of gamesmanship/cheating I've come across since the Hornchurch player two seasons ago who tried to gouge a divot out of the penalty spot while the ref was booking one of his teammates after awarding us a penalty. It must be an Essex thing.
Highlight of the day for me was a post-math visit to the local microbrewery, which was hosting a beer festival.
Team (4-3-3): Edwards - Hibbert, Drage, Nelson, J.Brown - Carew, Waldren(c), Dixon - McDonald, Moss, Clunis. Subs: Scannell, James, Murrell-Williamson, Sow, Sankofa. Attendance: 424
