No social media experiments last night. I went to pick my mate up with options open but with a hankering for Thurrock. By the time I got to Loughton the sensible thing was to head to Waltham Abbey. It also gave my mate an opportunity for a cash point run followed by a quick fire trip to McDonald's. What these errands meant was getting there about 30 seconds before kick off and missing out on a programme. I'm far from obsessed with programmes but I'd rather have one than not (though have long since given up on buying them at Orient in spite of the quality having improved significantly in recent times). I did politely decline the offer of one in the post. I'm not THAT bothered.
Penned in by allotments, a cemetery and the M25 Capershotts is a little on the bleak side. It's wet too, last season they must have set some kind of records for waterlogged pitches. Tonight saw the competitive début of their brand new playing surface and very lovely it looked too. It got a real workout too, as the heavens opened early in the second and didn't let up properly until the last 20 minutes. It passed with flying colours. Which is more than can be said for Waltham Abbey's opponents, Chatham Town. They conceded a penalty within the first 60 seconds which was expertly put away. The lead was soon two goals and Chatham looked like they would be on the end of a thumping. The only things they seemed to want to contest were the referee's decisions. This led to 3 bookings for dissent over the course of the matched. They turned around at the beginning of the second half and briefly pegged Waltham Abbey back before Abbey scored a third. 3:2 was quite flattering to Chatham although they had a call for a penalty right at the death turned down in place of a booking for the player who went down. I was too far away to have an opinion but they seemed VERY angry.
It's easy for me to not have an opinion. I was happy to clap Waltham Abbey's goals as the home team but I was essentially neutral. I was reminded though about one of the oft touted 'things' about non league football in contrast to league football. That it's somehow fairer in spirit. Now, in a lot of ways that's true but in the stands and on the terraces the fans are just as one-eyed as their counterparts further up the football pyramid. Possibly even more so. For one thing, even with the growing prevalence of highlights of non league games on YouTube and club websites non league fans are still far less likely to have their version of event subsequently corrected by footage. The Chatham fans certainly saw things in a very different light to the ref. The ref was mostly right though.
Mind you, if I'd travelled up from Chatham on an evening like last night I wouldn't necessarily have enjoyed the events on the pitch even though from my thoroughly neutral point of view their team brought a lot of their woes on to themselves.
The pouring rain didn't inspire me to whip my camera out but if you're interested in Capershotts there's a bunch of photos here
Given how local it is to me it's surprising I've never been before but I'd happily go back though it's a shame you have to trek across the carpark to get to the lcubhouse for any kind of refreshment as nothing seemed to be on offer inside the ground. Hey ho.
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