Pre-season Friendly
Princes Park, Dartford
Attendance: 1171
Admission: Free
Programme: £2
I had always wanted to visit Princes Park ever since it was opened 3 or 4 years ago, and today was the ideal opportunity, with free admission to all supporters for this pre-season friendly between Dartford of the Ryman League Premier against Folkestone Invicta of the Ryman League South. I was actually quite surprised that no more than the 1171 in attendance took advantage of this. Princes Park certainly is impressive, completely covered and just the right size with terracing on three sides of the ground and seating along one of the lengths.
As might be expected of a friendly, this was not the most interesting of matches, although Dartford always looked the stronger with Folkestone's ventures into the opposition half heavily restricted. Dartford scored what turned out to be the winner on the stroke of half time, with a cross from almost the corner flag dipping and swerving beyond the keeper and into the net.
The second half continued in a similar vein, although Folkestone did come into the game more, without ever really looking like scoring. Going from this game, Dartford look quite an exciting outfit, with pace on the wings and solid in defence. As predicted by many others, they should be comfortable in the Ryman Premier, possibly pushing for the play-offs. On the other hand, whilst Folkestone also looked pretty solid and comfortably kept Dartford at bay for most of the match apart from a fluke goal, they look particularly bereft of attacking ideas, and although you always need to be wary of reading too much into a pre-season friendly, I can only imagine a mid table finish for Folkestone in the Ryman South - which surely couldn't be satisfactory considering their status, even despite their financial problems.
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