Attendees - Me, Mike, Bill, Liz, Dave, Harry, Peter, Kit, JB and Roland
Ok, ok. I know that Upminster isn't in Dagenham (for those not 100% familiar with the Geography it's about 6 miles and 20 minutes drive) but it's close enough... especially as we had decided to meet in The Crumpled Horn pub, the venue for the pre-Wembley visit when Southend United got to the final of the JPT last April. The Kalijeera was about 100 yards away on the opposite side of the road and had come well recommended; Bill, showing impressive organisational skills, had pre-arranged the whole thing and we had selected our meals in advance. The game kicked off at 7:45 and we had to allow a good 45 minutes to get from Upminster to Dagenham, park (no mean feat in Dagenham on a Tuesday evening for what is a local derby), buy the tickets and take our seats. This meant leaving the restaurant at 7:00 latest, which in turn meant a 5:30 - 5:45 arrival for the food. Allowing for a drink or two in the pub first, we therefore set off at 3:30 from Leigh for the short trip up the A13 - the shortest away trip this season by some distance - to see if we could continue our good run of form and our push towards promotion and League One by grabbing three points off of Dagenham.
Stage one went to plan, despite getting caught in the school traffic en route and taking nearly an hour for what is usually a 35 minute journey. By 4:30 we were in the pub, allowing a good hour for a couple of bevvies and saunter along to the restaurant (which, incidentally, we had arranged to be opened early to accommodate us).
The waiter was standing at the door as we arrived and happily took the picture shown above (which we had about 6 attempts at)... such was our sense of humour we then thanked him very much and started to walk off up the road. Oh how we laughed!
We then went back to the restaurant and entered, apologising for our wind-up, and said we'd take our seats and await the previously arranged order. The waiter, presumably to get us back a bit looked at us in a dead pan style and said, "What order?"
Ha ha, we were still laughing as the pints of Cobra arrived, followed by the poppodums and pickles and then the main courses. We had a good time although I seem to recall the food being good but unspectacular. There was some confusion over the bill and the fact that a deposit had been paid, but we got there in the end. In an attempt to hurry matters along, Dave had squared up on his credit card and we all settled with him afterwards. I think it worked out at about £15 per head.
Marks -
Exterior - 7
Surroundings - 7.5
Interior - 7
Toilets - 7
Service - 8
Quality - 6.5
Value - 8
Overall - 7.29
The football
This had made us a bit late in leaving and so we made haste to Dagenham and eventually managed to park in a cul-de-sac. We just about made kick off and have to congratulate the ground staff who got the pitch looking really good considering the monsoon-like weather we had in the lead up to the game. The first half was non descript really and it then started raining. It didn't seem too bad but it got worse and worse as the match went on. We took the lead just after half-time but Dagenham equalised with a deflected shot and after that it was anyone's game. A point will have to do. Walking back to the car we discovered just how bad the rain had been as we were walking through puddles several inches deep across the car park and on the way back to the car. I don't think I could have been wetter if I had jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed.
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