The Pub Team From Essex

We made it, we actually made it. Its hard to believe but a club in the football league for no more than 3 years will be at Wembley on Sunday playing for the chance of promotion to League 1 of the football league, incredible.....or is it?.

There are some of us (not me I might add) who believe it will be the worst thing to ever happen to the club if promotion happens. The prices may go up for tickets, there may be more new supporters, and the club that they have supported all their lives will begin to drift away from them, changing from a Non-League club forever into a fully fledged League 1 side, there may also be strangers drinking in the club bar, buying merchandise and even asking who the number 10 is, a shock some of them may never get over. Sounds strange doesn't it?

I can understand their point of view though, no one likes change its one of the hardest things we have to embrace but for the club and players to achieve their dreams it has too. We lost 7 first team players last season when we missed the play-offs on that heart breaking last day of the season, yet John Still worked his magic again and bought some new gems to the club, Danny Green being one of them and Josh Scott another. Both have made major contributions to the team this year and have played their part in us getting this far, as have the older players, Paul Benson, Mark Arber, our player of the year and club captain, and not forgetting the ever young Tony Roberts.

If we attract new supporters next year ,which is a good thing, they have to embrace the club and all it stands for and respect the older fans views who remember the good old days of Non-League football. Saying that though the older supporters have to accept the newer supporters and embrace them and make them welcome.

If we win on Sunday and do go up it will be an amazing achievement for a club of our size, to go to places like Charlton, Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday, will be a dream come true for all at the club. We may struggle to fit all of their supporters in our small ground but that will be a nice problem to have. The extra income would be gratefully received as well and will allow us to keep our best players for a while longer. We may not survive longer than a season in League 1,but we can say we were there competing against 3 clubs that were in the Premier League not that long ago, who doesn't want that for their club?.

These are exciting times to be a Dagenham supporter and personally I wouldn't have it any other way. If we win fantastic Ill be very proud as all my fellow Daggers will be, however if we lose then good luck to Rotherham we'll lick our wounds and look back on it with pride of what this pub team from Essex managed to achieve.

Playing at the National Stadium for a place in League 1 of the Football League, I think we all would have taken that back in August.