The Joy Of Six

The day started even earlier than usual as the lure of £8 singles meant we had opted for a 7:15am departure from King's Cross - however this was off-set slightly by engineering on the East Coast line which would about add an hour to the journey time.

It did mean I could have a wander round town - including a visit to Taylors - before getting to the Quaker for opening time where I found Tony waiting for me. Thankfully he'd remembered to bring my watch and lens cap which I'd left at the Britannia when we were last up for a game.

On offer at the bar today were a trio from Brentwood Brewery in the shape of IPA, Spooky Moon and Hope & Glory. In addition there was Mithril Ale's Love Bug, Hill Island Febrewery Gold, Allendale Beacon Fire, Wensleydale Dub Stout, Franklins Bitter and Tom Woods Bomber County.

The Love Bug was excellent - probably the best from Mithril that I've had to date - and the IPA and Febrewery Gold were pretty solid too.

Also up for the game were the two Johns and man-about-Norway Neil Johnson. Bev was also in town but had declined to join us in gavour of some shopping.

(left) Nathan Modest on the wing

As usual we headed up to Number Twenty-2 before heading off up to the ground.

I had a quick wander round the club shop but as always seems to be the case, there wasn't much stock on display to try and tempt me to part with my hard-earnt cash.

Once pitchside I have a chat with Martin and his fellow tunnel steward, Gordon, who asks for my score prediction. I'm usually loathe to commit myself but I suggest we should win 3-0. Gordon agrees but Martin is pessimistic and opts for a two-all draw.

To be fair to him games against the so-called weaker sides at home have been hard-going affairs and the home defeat to Hayes was certainly a low point so perhaps we should temper our optimism.

However today sees us goes some way to think a little differently as we finally put a poor team to the sword.

Mark Bridge-Wilkinson opens the scoring 20 mins after taking a free kick that avoided everything in it's path and bounced into the net. Within the next fifteen minutes MB-W had managed to claim his debut hat-trick after scoring from two penalties.

Nothing decidedly dodgy about either of them except for the lunacy of the Eastbourne defending as both came from needless tackles on players moving away from goal - first MB-W and then Verma. Sam Russell commented to me that he couldn't believe how stupid they were.

At this point I got a text from John W - 'WRONG END' it read. As if I didn't know! However I like my usual spot and prefer stick to it for the whole game so that I can get shots of Darlo defending as well as attacking.

(right) Dan Burn in control

Liam Hatch then scored a fourth from a header before John Campbell got his debut goal for the Quakers with a shot that eluded keeper Forecast and saw the home side go five-nil up at the break.

As often happens, Darlo took the foot off the gas for the second half despite little obvious improvement from Eastbourne.

When the crowd attendance was announced with a special mention of the 13 away fans, the home crowd warmly applauded their opposite numbers without any hint of sarcasm. A long way to come to see your side play so poorly.

Despite missing five goals at the other end, I was in a prime position for the sixth and best goal of the day from Aman Verma - a cracking shot from just outside the box after some neat passing with MB-W.

It would have been nice to keep a clean sheet but Eastbourne contrived to score a few minutes from the end so that their baker's dozen had something to cheer before their long trip home.

(left) Verma shots and scores

After the game at Luton, this was the perfect tonic for those that hadn't travelled to Telford. There were many candidates for man of the match but it was given to MB-W. Hard to argue with that.

Our train back wasn't until 7:45pm, so we got a bus back into town and returned to the Quaker to revel in the warm glow of victory. Martin joined us there, nipping out to order some food for the return journey as we took advantage of the Pizza Express Valentine's offer, three courses for £15 - and very nice it was too.

Our train departed on time but unfortunately the day finally took a turn for the worse at Doncaster as a tree had falled on the line between there and Retford. This meant trains were running on just one stretch of track and we would be delayed until further notice.

We had a tedious wait at Donny station before we slowly passed through the affected area - we managed to speed along for an hour once we'd cleared it only to then hit the planned engineering south of Peterborough.

The net result was that we arrived at 12:35am - over an hour late which did at least mean we could claim the cost of our journey back from East Coast. But given it had only cost £8, I'd much rather have arrived on time...

I rushed down to the Northern Line only to find the last tubes had already been and gone and so it was back upstairs to the bus stops. Within a few minutes I was on a bus to Bow Church and from there a min-cab got me home at 1:45am, tired but happy.