Essex boys storm Wembley

Essex men are not great travellers. They are not great frontiersmen. An Essex man would, nine times out of ten, rather be at home, enjoying a beer, than going off to some unknown district.

But sometimes he gets driven, by a sense of duty, off his patch. And so it was on Sunday, when Dagenham & Redbridge found themselves, to the incredulity of everyone, in a Division Two play-off final against Rotherham United.

I'm an East saxon exile, living in south London and so my first sight of Daggers fans was at Green Park when I got on the Jubilee line. Two hefty lads in replica shirts were nervously checking tube maps, disbelieving the automated voice saying the train was bound for Wembley Park.

This was obviously a rare foray outside the county boundaries and the two teenagers, who were both comfortably over 15 stone, engaged in some worldly chat, which amounted to declaring far-flung places they had been.

One suggested he'd been to Manchester. The other had been to Birmingham, and said that was further. There ensued a massive dispute about whether Manchester of Birmingham was further away (from Essex, that is), cleared up only by the iPhone.

Yes, it was new territory for most of us, and the fans peeling out of Wembley Park tube station had an air of people who were there if not to believe it was true, then just to enjoy the dream. There was a bit of milling about with the Rotherham and Daggers fans eyeing each other with a mixture of friendliness and suspicion, all polite enough.

Getting into the stadium with my dad and his genial fellow season ticket-holder it was a remarkable sight seeing thousands of Dagenham fans making a decent fist of being a big team for a day.

We got into the stadium and the fans were trying to rid themselves of pre-match tension through drinking several pints of Carlsberg. Going for a piss, I noticed a few chaps queuing up for the toilet, trying, for all they were worth, to look like they needed a shit rather than a line of marching powder.

Getting into the stand behind the goal, the fans were warming up with a few songs.
"Digger!!! Dagger!!! Digger!!! Dagger" was the main one, followed up with "We're just a pub team from Essex" although that wasn't fully endorsed - it didn't seem right on this day.

Eventually the match got going and the Daggers lads looked a bit startled by their surroundings and were hoofing the ball around, afraid to make a mistake. I settled back to listening to the Essex man's banter, which never fails to amuse through the sheer volume of swear-words employed.

A grizzled old grandad behind me was saying, repeatedly, "He's a cunt." And then, to fully make his point, added, "Des's uncle - he's a cunt."
The calls to the pitch were of a similar nature. "Referee - cahnt!" said one, to much merriment.

Even my dad, who is not native Essex, but tries to fit in, joined in with, "Get up you tart!"

And then the match broke into life, with Benson swivelling in the box and slotting the opener home. This brought celebrations from the stand and absolute pandemonium on the pitch. The Daggers were amazed to be in front, and so set about getting the thing back on level terms. They started running around like headless chickens, kicking the ball blindly, and before you knew it, the Yorkshire men had equalised.

Daggers manager John Still must have made one of his Churchillian addresses to the lads at half-time because they came out playing with energy and belief and style. This style mostly involved getting the ball out to Danny Green on the right flank and letting him terrorise the full-back. After a while this paid off with him cutting inside and drilling one home.

2-1. But the Daggers repeated the previous half's action and gave it away as soon as they had got it. But this time they redoubled their efforts and with about 20 to go they got ahead 3-2. And then all that was left was for the fans to sit nervously and wait while the boys, paralysed by fear of losing the lead a third time, hacked the ball away time and again, before the ref gave us mercy and the thing was won.

Cue the glitzy celebrations: fireworks, flares, lots of Coca Cola branding. Then the lads picked up their trophy and an old man next to me said quietly: "We'll be playing Charlton next season."

Getting back off at Green Park, I saw another exile, in replica shirt and shorts, heading southbound on the Victoria line. I collared him for a chat.

"Marvellous, wasn't it?"
"That was better than when my kids were born," he said. "I shouldn't say that, but it's true."