WFC v Dover Athletic - Match Thread

[Keithsson]

The online version of the matchday programme is up and running to download...

Match Centre - Link

As ever though, if you're attending the games, do please buy a physical copy. There's more in it and buying one helps the club 👍🏻

[Bally]

1-1 at full time was a fair result although I'm sure Hinsh will feel that we did enough to win it and I would agree. That being said, I'm sure they would say the same after some excellent saves from Male.

Game started off very well. Exciting. Fast paced. Balanced. We looked threatening for the whole first half and Jake Robinson's finish gave a glimpse of 3 points before an equaliser just before half time.

Second half was more aerial and physical. Not our strength but we held Dover at bay. Bobomorodov earned a penalty but Ollie put it wide. We looked a bit flat (positionally) in the last half hour and Dover dominated the second ball. 1-1 it stayed until the whistle.

Excellent performance from Joe Rye at centre back (thanks to Hinch for selecting him over El-Abd), White was strong again and nice to see Barker back, although Marv was also good again in the first half.

Burger van and pizza the pop ups today. Both seemed reasonable and much less queues!

Game slightly marred by some neanderthals at half time. I hope Dover do something about that. Would like to see the club more proactive about this with marshalling/segregation in future. We dont know about the away teams in this league and today will hopefully serve as a warning. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Hope everyone is safe and well.

[newtoworthing]

My first post on here, and only 5th game.

Very disappointed today, thought much too much long ball which Dover defenders gobbled up. No attempt to play through midfield, hope this won’t be tactics throughout the season.

No doubt manager will be happy with a point for first game at higher level, and will say should have been 3 if scored pen, but that would have flattered us IMO.

[marcthemixer]

Watched today's game. The first half was excellent, the second half started off the same but soon went flat, not just the players on the pitch, but the crowd in the second half was really quite and I wasn't the only one to have noticed that in the stand. Anyway a positive start with the draw shame we couldn't finish the game off in the second half. Up the Rebels!

[smokeyjoe]

Great start in the first start .1-1 fair result . worthing defenders would would have known today that this is a tough league but stuck at it well . having a pen is really disappointing not the hit the target . players of the match was the very impressive Kane Wills . i thought lewis white needs to get on the ball more & get more involved in the game as i think he could be very good for us . callum kealey in my opinion is not up to this level , we saw the best of him last season .  

as for the scum Dover fans i saw them after the announcement of fans to stay in there ends approx 25 of them came up in the seated area of the main stand to go into the home end to literally start trouble . absolutely disgusting and i hope its not the way this league is going to be for the rest of the season .  

[Keithsson]

Welcome aboard newtoworthing and marcthemixer, good to have you here 👍🏻

Where to start?

Well, 'We're not in Kansas anymore Toto' 😳

Bottom line is a point is a point and we have to be content with that. But that was rude awakening, on and off the pitch!

On the pitch the opposition was so noticably bigger, stronger, more physical and direct than we're used to. It might seem worse as they were playing two leagues higher than we were but if that's an indication of what we're up against we're gonna have to toughen up and quick.

You say the tactics were different NTW but I think that was just a direct result of the above. We've grown used to having freedom and space in the middle that we're just not going to get in the NLS. Our play was dictated by their play, it was a case of 'if you can't beat them, join them'. But you're right, humping balls forward only works if you have an aerial presence up top, we don't, at least not until Cal came on.

Positives though...

Joe Rye?, wow! Didn't see that performance coming, credit to Hinsh for being brave there but boy he did well, my MOTM. It won't happen but for me Aarran doesn't automatically come back at his expense next game, he more than earned his shirt for Welling.

Kane. Love him, didn't see him in his previous spell so had an open mind... but now I'm a believer 👏🏻

We did show we can create chances at this level... we just learned the hard way that we need to take them!

Negatives...

We have a fine natural goalscorer in Jake Robinson, I hope to goodness its just a knock 🤞🏻

Summed up in one word for me, naivety, on and off the pitch.

On the pitch we have to learn from this, have to take chances, have to be brave, have to get stuck in, have to impose our game not get dragged into theirs. Long term this experience could actually help us more than a comfortable win would've, so long as we learn from it.

Off it, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the 'shenanigans' came over like a biker gang running amok at a village fete.

We are a wonderfully friendly and non aggressive club with volunteers at its heart and I love that. But street wise we ain't.

As soon as their 'mob' arrived and instantly tore the 'Worthing 1886' banner down students of football at a higher level just knew where it was going. Unsegregated, a thin orange line of volunteer stewards was never going to hold them, asking them nicely over the tannoy to stay at that end was totally futile.

Too late to stop what happened but going forwards, like the team, we need to learn lessons and work out proper segregation for teams with large followings and any kind of 'rep.' and probably beefier paid security too. Yes it will cost but so too will the loss of gate money from families if we don't.

I like the earlier comment 'plan for the worst, hope for the best'. Today I think we just hoped for the best.

Soured the day which was otherwise overall a positive experience. I hope on the way home they get caught for days in Operation Stack 👋🏻

[jjpworthing]

It was a good result all things considered. We were lively first half but Dover grew into the game and we looked very flat. Male was impressive with his saves towards the end.

Off the pitch I was less than impressed. Pretty much as soon as I entered the ground I saw a confrontation in the fan zone between opposing fans. And the scenes at half time was borderline disgraceful. I don't know how much blame can be attributed to either side but the Dover fans coming into the home end certainly cover themselves in glory. Need to look into preventing this sort of thing from happening in future.

[bonfireboy]

Delighted not to read any criticism of our fans on here after today. The trouble simply wasn't our fault and I was witness to all of it.
As soon as that Dover cohort arrived, they were straight into us. They were threatening from the first moment. And to anyone who knows it was obvious they were all "chewing" ( on cocaine ).
We met their initial hostility with bewilderment and attempted some humour and sang a few songs... But to no avail. They wanted to fight us and fights there were.
Worthing weren't looking for any of it. Not one bit.
Maybe I'm sensitive, but I feel there's a tendency on here sometimes to dig out our own fans. My last post on this subject got locked. I'm not surprised and I'm sorry for that.
But, today, we did nothing wrong at all. Nobody did. We were attacked by animals. And I'm glad to read no criticism of us on here ...
Well done to everyone that kept their cool. We and the club will learn from this.
Such a shame. We were all so happy to be back and enjoying the new fanzone in the sunshine. Then the animals arrived ...

[dutchboy74]

Aug 6, 2022 16:44:13 GMT Bally said:

1-1 at full time was a fair result although I'm sure Hinsh will feel that we did enough to win it and I would agree. That being said, I'm sure they would say the same after some excellent saves from Male.

Game started off very well. Exciting. Fast paced. Balanced. We looked threatening for the whole first half and Jake Robinson's finish gave a glimpse of 3 points before an equaliser just before half time.

Second half was more aerial and physical. Not our strength but we held Dover at bay. Bobomorodov earned a penalty but Ollie put it wide. We looked a bit flat (positionally) in the last half hour and Dover dominated the second ball. 1-1 it stayed until the whistle.

Excellent performance from Joe Rye at centre back (thanks to Hinch for selecting him over El-Abd), White was strong again and nice to see Barker back, although Marv was also good again in the first half.

Burger van and pizza the pop ups today. Both seemed reasonable and much less queues!

Game slightly marred by some neanderthals at half time. I hope Dover do something about that. Would like to see the club more proactive about this with marshalling/segregation in future. We dont know about the away teams in this league and today will hopefully serve as a warning. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Hope everyone is safe and well.

I think the reason there were less queues at the pop ups made be due to the pricing. A burger starting at 6.50 is taking the biscuit a bit in my eyes. I know the club are trying different things. The risk is now with the operator and not longer with the club. And the club most likely get a pitch fee/percentage of revenue. Hence the higher prices charged. I for one will not be buying burgers at those prices. And I know a lot of other people who usually buy food didn’t buy anything.

[Bally]

Wow didn't see that price. I did have a £7 pizza that was good. Fair comment though if a burger is £6.50 - was it a sirloin steak burger with a peppercorn sauce? If it was I could be tempted. If not, they won't last long!

[bonfireboy]

And as an addendum to above, I spoke to several 'old school' Dover fans after the game. I was wandering along with the flags and they stopped me to apologise for their gang of sad cases. They stopped me to apologise. Says it all. We had a nice chat, shook hands, wished each other well. Proper behaviour.

[dutchboy74]

Aug 6, 2022 17:52:00 GMT bonfireboy said:

Delighted not to read any criticism of our fans on here after today. The trouble simply wasn't our fault and I was witness to all of it.
As soon as that Dover cohort arrived, they were straight into us. They were threatening from the first moment. And to anyone who knows it was obvious they were all "chewing" ( on cocaine ).
We met their initial hostility with bewilderment and attempted some humour and sang a few songs... But to no avail. They wanted to fight us and fights there were.
Worthing weren't looking for any of it. Not one bit.
Maybe I'm sensitive, but I feel there's a tendency on here sometimes to dig out our own fans. My last post on this subject got locked. I'm not surprised and I'm sorry for that.
But, today, we did nothing wrong at all. Nobody did. We were attacked by animals. And I'm glad to read no criticism of us on here ...
Well done to everyone that kept their cool. We and the club will learn from this.
Such a shame. We were all so happy to be back and enjoying the new fanzone in the sunshine. Then the animals arrived ...

I am with you. The moment I saw the Dover fans you could sense they were trying to create trouble. However I have to say putting up a Worthing banner at the Dover end wasn’t the smartest thing to do. And I think the Dover fans removing it was the start of the trouble behind the goal. Don’t get me wrong I am not blaming our fans as they were looking for it. But we have to use common sense. But the club seriously need to start thinking about more security. Yes there is cost involved but if this keeps happening a lot of people will not come back again. It seems we haven’t learned a lot form last season when there were incidents with visiting supporters
Normally I have my son with me but for some reason he didn’t want to come today. And I am glad now he didn’t come today. An to be to frank I didn’t enjoy as much wither. And that is not result related.

[dutchboy74]

Aug 6, 2022 18:01:14 GMT Bally said:

Wow didn't see that price. I did have a £7 pizza that was good. Fair comment though if a burger is £6.50 - was it a sirloin steak burger with a peppercorn sauce? If it was I could be tempted. If not, they won't last long!

To be honest didn’t look that closely as I looked at the price first. But let’s see how it goes Over the next gm few home games but I have my doubts.

[marcthemixer]

Yes I agree to the last comment, pop up burger van and pizza to expensive, they could of put them up the other end of the ground with some porta loos, and kept away fans (Like Dover) up that end. Just a suggestion if we need segregation at the ground.

[Keithsson]

Aug 6, 2022 18:08:39 GMT bonfireboy said:

And as an addendum to above, I spoke to several 'old school' Dover fans after the game. I was wandering along with the flags and they stopped me to apologise for their gang of sad cases. They stopped me to apologise. Says it all. We had a nice chat, shook hands, wished each other well. Proper behaviour.

Glad you mentioned that. I was going to add that, as ever, a minority spoils things for the majority... and the majority of the DAFC fans were just regular Joe 'there for the football and a bit normal of banter' sorts like everyone else. The 'strokers' only numbered three or four dozen.

There were lots up in the stand but also conspicuously round the sides too. It was quite clear many actively avoided their end from the off... no surprise why now 🤣

That does though bring me on to another matter. The gate.

Derbies aside we really didn't get many away fans for games last season at all. Now, if you tot up the whites in all parts of the ground they easily numbered a couple of hundred. So subtract that from 1,500 and you're left with only our average from last season.

But this was no average fixture though. It was the season opener, the first game at this level, we were in in beautiful sunshine and Albion are playing away this weekend.

Comes to something when 1,500 seems a bit low but in the circumstances all the ducks were in a line for our optimum crowd.

Odd?, concerning?, or is it just me 🤣