The last blog I did documented the joyous experience of a last-minute equaliser at Gosport, and just how enjoyable the experience of a late goal going in our favour had been. Well, karma paid us a visit at Hendon and left a nasty bite wound as we were again on the wrong end of a late goal as we slipped to another, albeit narrow, defeat in the rain. Hendon was a day that followed the classic pattern of many a Dorch away trip in that it was a decent day that was tainted by the football. The 90 minutes even…

At about half past nine on Wednesday night, there didn’t seem to be much requirement for a blog on our visit to Gosport. 2-0 down and heading into the last five minutes, it hadn’t been a bad performance at all but it was literally and figuratively nothing to write home about. Then Danny Hollands got caught in possession and my plan of playing Football Manager on the laptop on my way home was drastically changed. This was a fixture that had been planned for a previous Saturday, but Gosport’s involvement in the FA Cup meant it had been rearranged for…

It has been almost exactly a month since my last blog, the Bank Holiday win over Poole Town, and much has changed in that time. The main changes are that three of Poole’s best players from the side they put out that day now play for us, and that their manager is now our manager. The latter of these is such a recent change that it left me having to partially rewrite this blog when caught totally by surprise. I’ll get to the new managerial team later; you must first read through the Didcot and Plymouth games that showed both…

With games over the Bank Holiday weekend against two of the best sides I saw us play last season, namely Chesham at home on Saturday and Poole away on Bank Holiday Monday, I’d have snapped your hand off for two points ahead of those. After a pretty demoralising 2-0 defeat against ten-man Chesham on Saturday, I was expecting very little other than a hammering at Poole, but fuck me did we turn up as a team and left with a fully deserved first three points of the season. Everything we did well at Poole, we had done badly against Chesham…

If the opening day of the season was a night out, it would be New Year’s Eve. We’ve all had one great NYE that set the bar unobtainably high for future years, and it is now just a once a year special that never lives up to expectations, but one you feel dutybound to see through to the end. Where the DTFC opening day peak was is debatable, but a 3-0 win at St Albans seems to be the majority verdict. That day at Clarance Park in 2007 saw us cruise to victory with goals from Jamie Gleeson, Hardy Pinto-Moreria and Matt…

There are few better footballing feelings than seeing your side win away from home, particularly on cold midweek nights such as Tuesday. Conversely, there are few worse footballing feelings than seeing your side lose away from home, particularly on cold midweek nights such as Tuesday. My visit to North Leigh comfortably falls into the latter category, and as I was stood on the solitary platform at Hanborough station, freezing and needing a piss, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d made the right choice in heading to a village in Oxfordshire that makes Puddletown look like a thriving metropolis, having…

Last time I visited Tatnam Farm, Poole were a Wessex League team and the General and I, as we did every year in those annual pre-season games, jumped over the fence at the back of the ground rather than stumping up a couple of quid. Poole have progressed a long way since those days, but having lived abroad for the last five or so years, this was my first time there for a competitive match between the two sides. On paper, this should have been a decent local derby. They are, after all, the second nearest club to us; there have been plenty…

Usually, when Christmas comes early, it means something good has happened ahead of time. Well, due to a combination of working shifts and logistics, my Christmas once again literally came early as Sunday December 4th was my designated Christmas Day in Dorchester with my Mum and The Girlfriend. This did mean one anomaly on this out-of-sync festive period; Christmas Eve coincided with Dorch at home to Chesham. What a treat for all involved… Our festive form over the past few seasons has been nothing short of awful, and there is a handy TSOF blog from last season to document this,…