Smoke Gets Up Your Arse
MAIDSTONE UNITED 0 DARTFORD 2
MATCH REPORT BY PETER IAN STAKER
It was miserable, soul-destroying even. A will-sapping contest between two deeply uninspiring sides, narrowly settled by a man billed as a tactical genius but who in reality was nothing better than a chancer, a shit, a serial bullshitter, a malignant, carcinogenic tumour, a profoundly inadequate individual, never happy unless he’s in the middle of a pointless, destructive and futile conflict, never happier than when he has a grievance. If there’s any justice in the world he’ll spend the rest of his life cleaning out portaloos in a Dartford lorry park, using only his tongue.
But that’s enough about Dominic Cummings. Let’s talk about Steve King. Credit where it’s due, Dartford just about deserved to win a game that might easily have drifted to a 0–0 draw. Credit King also for reigniting a fairly stagnant rivalry which, for all the bitterness of 1992, had become fairly civil while JS1 and Tony Burnham were in charge.
That all changed last year when JS2 launched the Princes Park Pixie after the FA Trophy replay and the launchee well and truly lost his shit. Then again, given that he seems to be permanently pissed off about something, was he merely transferring his anger from one vehicle to another?
This is the man, after all, who when his Whitehawk side drew Everton in the FA Cup, told the BBC “I wanted the reds, but I’ve got the bluuuues.”
“Wow,” his rueful smirk to the camera said. “I’ve unleashed a zinger there.”
“Wow,” thought the viewing public. “What a cunt.”
They never did get to play Everton because they lost their replay to Dagenham, then managed by JS2. This might explain quite a few things, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Much has happened since we were last with you ladies and gentlemen and for once it hasn’t all been bad, but for a moment join with us as we share with you a vision of hell.
March, 2021. A safe, effective vaccine is rolled out. The UK government orders 60 million doses on Amazon, but just as he’s about to confirm the purchase, Matt Hancock sees a suggestion. “You might also like 60 million doses of bleach.” Knowing a bargain when he sees one, he adds them to his basket. A zero-hours Herpes courier, driven insane by a 72-hour wait to cross the Kentish border at Swanley, gets the orders mixed up. Two days later the entire population dies an agonising death and the only survivors are David Icke and the anti-vaxxer from the Maidstone United forum.
In a desperate bid to restock the species, Icke pounds the anti-vaxxer day and night until finally, by some form of miraculous conception, our anti-vaxxing pal gives birth to a small but perfectly formed lizard, who immediately is recognised as the one, true God.
Hey, it could happen. And who’s to say he wouldn’t make a better job of managing the response?
The concept of Lockdown remains vague. Town was still bustling on Saturday, with the food shops and, bizarrely, WH Smiths, all open and the jovial busker on Week Street still belting out his choons.
The takeaways were also doing brisk business and incidentally if you’re thinking of patronising one of the many, excellent eateries that still offer carry outs in the town centre, remember that the new German Kebab shop on Week Street (whose Slogan “Kebabs Done Right” arrives courtesy of the “Marketing Done Illiterate” PR Agency) decided to sponsor Gravesend & Northfleet and not the club a couple of hundred metres away. Other sources of heated meat produce are available.
The concept of “closed doors” also remains vague. Our mole at the ground reports that a mystifying number of so-called visiting officials were present despite having no obvious reason for being there. One waded into a taped off area and moaned at a steward after he’d politely asked her not to sit there. Given that several hundred other seats were available this didn’t seem unreasonable, but she allegedly replied: “Wow, eez a jobswurve, innee,” as she moved away.
“No mask either,” said our mole, “although maybe the layers of orange foundation offered a shield. It was certainly hard to see even the most sophisticated of biological weapons penetrating that defence.”
Which brings us, finally, to the game. Do we have to? Really? Oh for fuck’s sake, all right then.
For maybe half an hour we looked the better side. At the start Luque was roasting the right back, leaving him for dead with an ease that made you think it was a matter of time before he either scored or set up a goal. Instead he didn’t have his usual impact and when he was withdrawn after an hour it smacked of some kind of injury. We had two penalty shouts turned down and they might not have been screaming Peter Tatchell’s, but they both fell into the “I’ve seem ’em given, Clive,” category.
Dartford weren’t creating a lot either, trying to go route one, but overhitting so many passes that Constable spent most of the half taking goal kicks. Both central defensive pairings dominated and the teams were evenly matched, effectively cancelling each other out for 75 minutes. King was, again according to our mole, “whining like a bitch” throughout and with no crowd noise to deafen him his “banter” was audible across the pitch.
Amo was trying, but tricks that were enough to bamboozle mid-table defenders weren’t fooling their top-of-the-table counterparts. If he got past one man, which he frequently did, a team mate would usually be there to stifle the attack. He’s the sort of player who can win a match with a moment of individual brilliance, but the closest he came on Saturday was with a shot that he dragged wide, from an area where he frequently scores.
The game was always likely to be decided by a set piece, a mistake or, as it turns out, both. With 13 minutes left we didn’t clear our lines from a free-kick and they scored. Four minutes later something similar happened from a long ball.
The management haven’t got a lot wrong this season, but at this point you had to wonder if Olutade was being trolled. He scored after coming on at Hendon, came on as a sub at Slough to set up a goal only to get subbed and on Saturday he was stripped off and spent 10 minutes getting cold on the sideline, before putting his gear back on and sitting down again. He seems to be entering the Brian Jones or Tony McCarroll stage.
Porter came within a Gove cock-length of steering in a cross and that might have made things interesting, but the game dribbled to a conclusion and by that stage the only consolation was that we were at least spared the sight of the “get in” shit taking place in the corner. Football without fans is … actually significantly easier to deal with when you’ve just lost at home.
And then the bollocks started, as it always does. We were tactically outwitted, they “wanted” it more. If King really was a tactical genius, was telling his players to overhit a dozen passes in the first half all part of the masterplan? Did he know he in advance that the ref was a copper and that a white boy was likely to receive a lenient punishment for thwacking a black guy?
The truth is that last week we narrowly beat a good side and this week we narrowly lost to a good side, although something obviously happened between the time HH gave a fairly measured post-match interview and the time he spoke to the local press, because by Sunday morning he was calling for the referee to resign. Well why not, it’s been a week for it.
After viewing the highlights he was left in a urine-boiling rage about the penalty non-decisions and Sheringham escaping a red for his foul on Elokobi. It’s worth pointing out that it was 2–0 at the point but as Mourinho would say, it’s pleasing that he was that pissed off.
On to Disneyland. If you want our advice, fuck off the live stream, fuck off Radio Kent, follow it on Twitter, wait for the highlights and spend the money you’ve saved on a doner from the Maidstone Grill (slogan, the perfect end to a great night out, courtesy of Stones Live).
