To Broad Lane! …for the first home match of the new season with Wivenhoe Town. We start early in non-league and we also end early. Wivenhoe are usually on the beach come the end of March, and not in a good way, either.
The pre-season has been one change for the Dragons. After the bloody awful relegation experience of last season, somehow the league gave the Dragons a reprieve. We find ourselves in the same division that was a bit of a dog’s dinner for the Dragons last year.
What could possibly go wrong?
There has been change on the ground however. This has taken the form of a new (ahem) stadium sponsor. I had the pleasure of a bit of a meet ‘n’ greet with the young fella ahead of KO. He is very ambitious and certainly seems to have the right ideas about how to move the club forward.
We’ve also got a new coaching team in the dugout. Thankfully the same old supporters are still lingering around the old place. You can’t handle too much change in one go.
But wait! What’s this?
I’ve gone on something of a personal quest in recent weeks to try and get more people from the town into the ground. Broad Lanes may be within CO7, but it never actually feels part of the community.
It needn’t be this way. It wasn’t always this way. I intend to change this with a long campaign in which to promote the Dragons from a personal perspective.
Having plugged the match online earlier in the week, I thought it only appropriate to arrive early for once. No one wants to be late for their own party, right?
I arrived 15 minutes or so ahead of KO. Blimey, there’s only a car park attendant. I’ve never seen this before.
SHIT THE BED - there was actually a queue of around fifteen people waiting to get in. I hope the stray shot from the warm up that narrowly missed taking the head off a newbie in the queue didn’t put them off.
My season ticket was flashed at the gate. This dropped earlier in the day. We were asked to send over a couple of selfies to be added. The joke amongst the hardcore is already that our season tickets look like skiing holiday boarding passes.
CHEESE!
It was great to catch up with some friendly faces inside the ground. One of the old lags let it drop that the new coach hasn’t actually taken over yet. He’s serving out a suspension from his previous position.
Whoops.
I looked around the old place. I can’t take personal credit for this but the crowd was certainly healthy. The two-for-one offer helped. There was also the obligatory opening day season inflatable to make it more family-friendly.
SHOUT OUT to the deputy mayor of Wivenhoe, who made a bloody good effort in turning up. It was very decent catching up with her. She genuinely wants to help out the football club in whatever capacity she can at the Town Council.
On the pitch and Wivenhoe got off to a blunder. An early penalty led to a 1-0 lead. This was an incredibly young team. I would say a couple of players have yet to reach the age when they can actually celebrate in a pub after scoring a penalty.
Bloody hell - we were only 2-0 up in under ten minutes. Maybe now would be a good time to go home?
A third soon followed with a quite exquisite passing move that would have been lauded if Manchester City had made such an approach. That was probably the first and last time I will compare Wivenhoe Town with Man City this season.
The rare times that Wivenhoe needed to defend, they did it rather well. The away team’s number eleven was rather tricky. He went on a few good mazy runs.
Parson Drove, were then awarded a penalty themselves. This seemed a bit harsh. The lino they confessed he couldn’t see a bloody thing. The ref claimed it was handball. The young Wivenhoe ‘keeper made a tremendous save but the follow-up was then knocked in.
Halftime came and went. Out came the away team with their heads down. This looked like a game that they had lost already.
It was great to see some father and son - or mother and son - interactions from the Wivenhoe players ahead of the restart. This showed how young the new team is. Their parents had come out to support their kids.
A fourth goal for Wivenhoe followed 50 minutes into the second half. It was a beautiful lob that fooled the away ‘keeper.
Parson Drove offered little physical threat throughout the game. It will be interesting to see how the Dragons fair up against some of the more experienced cloggers they will no doubt come across in this league.
The visitors then scored an undeserved second goal. Wivenhoe responded with a very much well-deserved fifth with five minutes to go. The strike into the top corner was the goal of a game.
And do we already we have a record of P3, W2, L1. The away defeat to Holland on Sea can best be explained as a loss against what will be a promotion-chasing team.
Whisper it quietly: these are exciting times ahead at Broad Lane; the new coach, the young team and my rather disorganised one-man campaign to get more people in to the ground may just lead to something of a special season for the Dragons.
