Heading Over To Dover - On The Trophy Trail With Luuk van Lieshout

Unlike the rest of us, however, he has to travel from the Netherlands to watch it!

Five times thus far, he’s got into his car and driven 200 miles to Calais to board the Channel train, just to watch a random match in the Buildbase FA Trophy, as he follows his quest to take in a match in every round of the competition.

His journey is all set to end at Wembley with Non-League Finals Day on 20th May.

His latest trip was to Crabble to watch Dover Athletic taking on Marine AFC.

Here’s his story.

Apart from coming ashore at Dover, I hadn’t actually visited Dover itself before now. That would change today. I expected it to be touristy, having seen the famous white cliffs and the castle perched on top a couple of times. But this wasn’t the case at all. Although mid-January might not be the best of times to come to this seashore town, I didn’t really mind it. There was a football match to be played, one that crossed my road to Wembley.

My companions and I arrived quite early. We had three hours to spend before kick-off – more pre-match time than any previous trip. So, we entered the museum, just to tell our wives we weren’t hanging in the pub all day. We walked quickly through the first two floors, with nothing interesting to see there. But the top-floor had a surprise for us with a real 30-feet-long Bronze Age Boat, and you started to question how they got it up there, given the narrow staircases. That was enough history for one day, so it was off to a pub, where we enjoyed a pint of lager and watched some footy. I always enjoy the relaxed atmosphere in British pubs, and one of my friends picked up on that, saying he understood why I like to visit them.

We decided not to defy the freezing January wind, and got in our car to drive the two miles to Crabble Stadium. It was still an hour before kick-off, and lucky for us, a rugby match was going on inside the parking lot. I’m an enthusiast for rugby as well, but unfortunately the sport isn’t very popular in the Netherlands. I try to catch a match on the BBC whenever I can. Although this wasn’t top level, I really enjoyed having seen the first try in live action of my life, and I was impressed with the conversion kick from only five yards from the sideline. After twenty minutes or so, we decided to focus on our main event.

I had seen pictures of Crabble Stadium before, but once inside it was bigger than I imagined. We had to take some time to get a good look at it all, but a cranky steward didn’t want us standing in front of the clubhouse, so we went inside to warm ourselves up. I mean, I can understand you don’t want people standing there during the match, but there was still half-an-hour to kick-off.

A few minutes before kick-off we took our seats in the brand-new Family Stand. I saw my first mascot of the season, Captain Crab. He caught my eye, because just as he was about to get off, he decided to do a dab right in front of our stand. Frankly, Captain Crab looked a little awkward; ‘it’ had ridiculously small arms and bore a distasteful grin – this was no happy mascot, it’s a horny one. After this, er, entertainment, both teams came on to pitch, and the match began.

I thought I was crazy coming all the way from the Netherlands, to watch this fixture, that is until I saw about 150 people who had travelled even further than me. The visitors from Liverpool made sure their trip was worthwhile, singing and cheering right from the start. After Dover went 2-1 up, and the Dover fans were singing for a bit, they even replied with “You only sing when you’re winning”. It must have kept them warm as well. Maybe for the time of the year it wasn’t bad, but still with the wind and high humidity I was glad to get myself some hot cocoa during half-time.

The match itself was a great spectacle: a game played at a quick pace, with long balls and a clutch of borderline tackles – yep, a typical January game in England. My friends had to “tune-in” though. Coming from the Netherlands we don’t usually want our defenders to play kick-and-rush. One of my mates asked me if the teams would keep doing this for the whole match. The answer turned out to be “yes”, especially as far as Marine were concerned. Dover, having the better quality players on the pitch, also tried to put together some well-worked attacks. But it was difficult on this pitch. Clearly, winter had had its effects on the surface, and players were sometimes having trouble with the ball. Don’t get me wrong, I think the pitch looked great, considering the amount of rain that had fallen in December. It certainly provided a better spectacle than the previous match I watched, which was contested on an artificial pitch.

The game got off to a flying start. We had the first danger after seconds into the match, with Dover heading the ball just wide. The first goal came after 6 minutes, but just like their fans, the Marine players were intent on making their trip memorable too. They didn’t give up, got stuck into the game, and treated fans of both sides to a real match.

Even when Mariner Billy Smart was sent-off towards the end of the first half, the visitors kept working hard, held their defensive lines together, and tried to sneak out themselves a couple of times. Early in the second half came the best goal I’ve witnessed in the Trophy so far, as Mitch Pinnock tucked away his shot into the top corner from 25 yards out. Also, worth mentioning were the cunning moves of Marine striker Danny Mitchley – I think it’s an underappreciated factor in modern football. And it’s what got Marine AFC their second penalty, which brought the tension back into the game, as Mitchley scored the penalty himself to make it 3-2.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough for the visitors. After bringing the Dover lead back to one goal yet again, they missed a final chance to force a Tuesday night replay. The match ended 4-3 to the home side, and instead of reflecting on their own troublesome performance, the Dover supporters applauded both teams for their enormous effort they put into the match and complemented the visitors on their performance. You could tell the hosts were relieved with this win, and after a short talk with one of the fans, we said goodbye with the hopes that we’d see each other again, at Wembley.