FA Vase 1st Qualifying Round
Gale Street, Dagenham
Admission: £5.00
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: 36
Match Rating: 4
Having travelled far for the last two Saturdays, and will do again next Saturday, I wanted a fairly easy game to get to. With today being the opening round of this season's FA Vase competition, and with rail engineering works preventing my preventing my preferred destinations in the Southampton or Colchester direction, I decided to head to East London, to watch a club making their way in their first season senior football.
May & Baker play at the home ground of Barking Rugby Football Club, which is about a 15 minute walk southwards from Becontree tube station along Gale Street, just before it meets the busy A13 dual carriageway. Spectators enter the ground next to the large clubhouse, paying admission to a man sat on a seat. All of the facilities open to football spectators is contained on the first floor of the clubhouse, with two bars - one quite small and cosy, the other much more spacious and not so comfortable, and with hot food and drinks available from a window within this bar. There is a long balcony along the front, which offers excellent elevated views of the match, although a couple of floodlight pylons to partially obscure one's view. There is just hard standing along the rest of the length, and spectators are not permitted anywhere else within the ground, apparently as landlords Barking Rugby Club will not allow it, and so a fairly long all-seater metallic stand opposite the clubhouse is out of bounds on football match day, although a handful of people did make it over there. A further rugby pitch is located beyond the stand, where a game was taking place today. In all honesty, it is not the best place to watch football, with no club identity around, and with the overriding feeling, understandably, that rugby is very much the dominant sport here. The pitch was also not in great condition, patchy in places, left quite long and with many clumps of grass cuttings around. With rugby also bring played on the pitch, one can imagine the pitch will be in a pretty poor state after Christmas. The 12 page programme was good enough, introducing both clubs and including predicted line-ups, league table and fixtures and results.
May & Baker's were one of the beneficiaries of the creation of the new Step 6 league in Essex, earning promotion despite only finishing in seventh place in the Essex Olympian League Premier Division last season. They have started their season in the Eastern Counties League Division One South strongly, winning three and drawing the other of their opening four league games, scoring 14 goals in the process. Burnham Ramblers also ply their trade in the Eastern Counties League Division One South, having been relegated from the Essex Senior League last season and have made a slow start to this season in the lower division, drawing two and losing two of their opening four league games.
On a sunny and fairly warm afternoon, there was little indication of what a one-sided game this would be until the home side opened the scoring on 15 minutes, a ball crossed in from the left found an unmarked Dean Hall, who poked the ball home just inside the post. And after seeing a shot well saved three minutes later. They doubled their lead on 21 minutes after some fabulous passing through midfield, a slide rule pass set Daniel Gilchrist clear, and he slotted the ball past the keeper. And the outcome of the match already looked as good as decided on 23 minutes, when the ball was passed to a completely unmarked Reece Tranter, who fired the ball home. May & Baker scored their fourth on 32 minutes following another good diagonal pass through the defence allowing Tranter to run clear before firing into the net via the keeper's fingertips. And when the home side scored their fifth on 35 minutes, after Gilchrist flicked the ball up over a defender before striking the ball into the net, the result already was beyond doubt, and the best the visitors could hope for was to avoid the scoreline becoming really ugly, with over an hour left to play. But they did see the half out without any further damage, despite a couple of near misses by the hosts.
The second half was much more even for long periods, as May & Baker certainly took their foot off the accelerator. They did have a great chance to score again on 63 minutes, when three attackers ran at one defender, but the eventual shot went wide of the far post, but a minute later, the visitors grabbed a consolation goal, when a header by Jack Davis looped high over the keeper and dropped down over the line. But May & Baker restored their five goal lead seven minutes later when the ball was crossed low from the left for Gilchrist to shoot high into the roof of the net from close range to claim his hat-trick. The home side continued to create chances, before scoring their seventh on 79 minutes. A good dribble inside the box by Gilchrist evaded a couple of defenders before he poked the ball past the keeper for his fourth of the match. And the scoreline became 8-1 on 81 minutes, when substitute Kiel Chandler struck the ball against the inside of the post and bounced just inside the other post. There were certainly opportunities still for May & Baker to reach double figures but it was not to be.
Whilst a home win would have been expected in their first ever FA Vase game, the margin of victory certainly was a surprise, although they always looked a real threat going forward, with accurate, incisive passing whilst the visitors always struggled whenever the opposition players ran at them.
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