Town made the trip to Dagenham on Saturday to take on M & B Club eager to build on their previous week’s performance against Harold Wood, where although ultimately they went home empty handed they played very well. There was the usual host of absentees but Town welcomed back Flighty from injury and Wiggy and Taff who have been missing for months for various reasons. Going into this game M & B were unbeaten in their previous 10 league games so were obviously in tip top form, and confident, so this was going to be tough.

On a gloriously sunny afternoon Town started in determined mood and early on the midfield 4 of Matt Macedo, Brad Merrick, Lee Humphrey and Mark Neal provided a solid base allowing Headon to strut his stuff and he played some early probing balls for Jeater and Polley up front to feed off. At the other end the Town defence of Grandy, Lodgey & Dave Martin looked solid and dealt with M & B’s attacks reasonably comfortably. After 18 minutes Town took the lead when Polley turned his marker on the half way line and played an exquisite pass for Jeater who showing both great pace and awareness lobbed the advancing keeper from 20 yards, 0-1. It was now end to end stuff and Chris Neal in the Town goal had to be on his toes to deal with several dangerous crosses and corners, especially with the very tall M & B players. 10 minutes before half time Town doubled their lead when Jeater went down the right wing and slid a ball in for Headon on the edge of the box who beat the defenders lunging tackle by cleverly allowing the ball to run across him before striking a shot that hit the bar and bounced out, Headon reacted first to the rebound to force the ball home from 6 yards out, 0-2. Half time arrived with the usual warning that “we have been here before, don’t blow it”.

The second half kicked off and Town were positive from the word go and never allowed M & B any encouragement that they may get back into the game. They went on to produce an absolutely stunning 45 minutes of attacking football scoring 4 more goals with just one solitary reply to run out 1-6 winners. Polley scored 2 – he took a penalty, won by Jeater, who was brought down when homing in on goal, his original spot kick was superbly saved but he reacted quickest to the rebound to score from close range after some nifty footwork to round the keeper – his second was a goal of pure quality - he turned the M & B defenders inside out on about 3 occasions before firing home a fierce shot from 12 yards that flew into the top corner. Jeater scored his second when showing great movement off the ball he latched onto a superb little “set” ball from Polley to hammer home from close range and Lee Humphrey, who has been badly missed for most of this season, scored from a right foot volley from 12 yards after being played in by yet another superb pass from Polley. Late on Flighty, Wiggy and Taff replaced Brad, Matt & Headon and Flighty in particular gave a great little cameo of a display. So overall a superb victory and Town can now go into their last 3 games in confident mood and if they continue to perform like they did today I remain ever confident that we can stay up.

Player of the match this week has a few contenders obviously mostly attacking players:- Graham Jeater scored 2, made one and earned the penalty, Chris Headon made one and scored one and played a host of fine probing passes, Lee Humphrey was a constant threat down the right wing and scored a fine goal. Mark Neal was a colossus in midfield but this week it goes to Ben Polley who scored 2 and made 3 and was quite simply sublime on the day.

El Col