For March 5th I'm going back 5 years to 2016 and the game between Dagenham & Redbridge and York City at Victoria Road, Dagenham.
Some matches are memorable for all the right reasons. Occasionally however a match can be memorable for being truly dreadful. This awful game was one of the latter. At kick off the two teams were respectively 92nd and 91st in the league i.e. it was a battle between the worst 2 teams in the top 4 leagues in English football. York had 26 points from 34 games and had played 3 more games than the side immediately above them in the table. Bottom placed Dagenham had only 21 points from 33 games. Nothing that we witnessed that day gave us the impression that we were watching anything other than the 2 worst teams in English football!
It was absolutely no surprise that the two teams concerned finished the season in the two relegation positions and by some distance (9 points) from Newport County safely above the trapdoor positions. And so York sadly returned to Non-League football only four seasons after their triumphant return to the Football League following their Play-Off Final win against Luton Town at Wembley in 2012. 34 points from 46 games and only 7 wins all season tells its own story.
Dagenham won the game of few chances with a 78th minute goal from full-back Josh Passley. The Daggers, under the management of Non-League management legend John Still, included former York City Play-Off winner Ashley Chambers in their line-up. York were being managed by former Celtic legend Jackie McNamara whose tenure at York was an utter disaster. He was despised by the fans and led the club inexorably downwards. A court appearance for failing to buy a train ticket just about summed up the negativity that surrounded him. Amusingly (if you take pleasure in gallows humour), City's goalkeeper that season, Scott Flinders, was given the rather unkind (but none too inaccurate) nickname by the supporters of "Butter Flinders"!
CRB Match No. 2083
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