Last weekend’s defeat away at Basingstoke (a game we really should have won) meant that our impressive unbeaten run came to a disappointing end at the penultimate hurdle. It’s testament to the players – and of course management – that we have gone from battling relegation at Christmas to now being disappointed to lose a somewhat meaningless game in the space of a few months. Such is the anticipation and excitement for next season that ending the season unbeaten since Gosport felt like an important milestone. Nevertheless, it wasn’t to be and so we had to somehow find a way…

I wasn’t planning of coming back to the UK for Easter, but sometimes a few things align that takes all decision making out of your control. This is what vegans, yogi’s and our very own Tom Goddard would call “the universe sending you a message.” In this instance, it was much simpler. Dorch are good again and word was spreading that everyone was eyeing up Winchester away as a big away day. This feeling of FOMO was confirmed when a certain Dan Floyd was added to the WhatsApp group after the Didcot game, following a ten year hiatus in which…

There have been times recently when us going behind was the death knell for that particular game. The amount of games where we’ve been 0-0 at halftime to inevitably go behind and succumb to a 2-0 or a 3-0 loss in this godforsaken league is no doubt a big number. As recently as earlier this season we’ve been in good positions and even then feared the worst. 3-2 up away at Walton a few games in and none of us were confident we’d hold on and felt we had to get the next goal to stand any chance. We lost…

Nearly all day Wednesday and for part of the time at the ground, most of us thought that our game at Totton would be called off. There was a couple of minutes when we were 3-0 down that we’d have all been glad or a torrential downpour or a floodlight failure. But come the final whistle, everyone affiliated with Dorch was very glad there wasn’t as we came from behind to claim a remarkable 4-4 draw in one of the most batshit crazy games of football I’ve ever seen. This was a fixture I’d pretty much all but written off…

A solo trip to Bracknell didn’t exactly have the hallmarks of a decent day out, logistical difficulties on the way there made it seem even more of a fool’s errand. But come five o’clock and having got three precious, and very deserved, points to move us out of the bottom three, I was very glad I made the effort and didn’t accept the local taxi drivers offer of dropping me off at Bracknell Cricket Club. The result itself wasn’t so much of a shock. We’ve been in decent form recently and aside from the 3-0 loss at home to Gosport…

There have been times over the past few seasons when I’d have not watched Dorch if they were playing at the end of my garden – a very metaphorical garden, I live in a fourth floor flat in Peckham, so no gardens here – but an uptick in form and performances have seen me catch the bug again and two reasonably close by away games in four days saw me making tracks to both Didcot and Hanwell. Both teams are in the relegation dogfight with us, and both places are easily accessible by train, so it was with hope and…

At various different points in the last ten years, I and many others have wondered when things will get better. Finishing bottom of the Conference South; survival battles as a regular occurrence; a last day escape; a reprieve from certain relegation due to a deadly global pandemic; and two half seasons which promised much but ultimately delivered bottom half finishes. Well, there were green shoots of recovery and the hope that we can kick on as we beat Harrow at the weekend with what was comfortably our best all-round performance of the season, keeping us in touch with sides around…