STILL: DAGGERS WON’T PLAY FOR DRAWS
EVEN they’ll tell you it’s not the most glamourous place on earth, east London’s Dagenham . A bit harsh? Well not according to a rather damning resident’s satisfaction survey, which saw the borough come first in the ‘Worst Places To Live in the UK’ poll. Bland, drab and uninspiring were a selection of the locals’ complaints about their parish. Usually those within earshot of the Bow Bells will defend their own until the death. Not in this little pocket of paradise. Yet, John Still wouldn’t swap his home town for anywhere else. Characterless? Well any Dagenham citizens fed up with the predictability should pop along to see their football club. This season, it’s anything but. One minute they’re losing to Guiseley and being hit for five at home to Gateshead, the next out-playing Forest Green to go back up into second. It’s been so hard to keep pace with that the club were advertising tickets to last weekend’s big match as a vital game “against their play-off rivals”.
Point Made
They won it, and now they’re very much in the title race. It’s all wonderfully confusing. If it truly is as boring in Dagenham as the Independent’s survey suggests, then nobody bothered telling legendary manager Still about its apparent tedious traditions. “We decided in the summer that draws are no good to us,” he told me this week. “So we no longer ever go into games thinking a point being good enough. “It’s the draws that kill you! We’ve only had four and I’m proud of that. What’s the point in drawing? I’d rather lose trying to win – honestly. OK, if you really dig in and get a point I’m not going to be upset, but when you do get three points instead of one it lifts the pressure when you get defeats. “We’ve lost a fair number this season, but we’re still in it because we’ve won instead of drawing. You never know, it may end up working.” Still observes one fine East End tradition: making the most of what he’s got as he tries to get by. This week he signed another player from the lower levels, Eastbourne’s Elliott Romain – who has 19 goals in the National League South.
“Finding players from lower down, I love it!” Still said. “We’ve signed five players from that level or below and I can’t get enough of it. They are always more hungry than anyone you bring in from above. “It’s important to do your job properly and make the effort to go and see them. The amount of times I get sent DVDs with a players’ best bits is incredible. What can I do with that!
“You have to get out there, you have to see their body language and how they react to when things aren’t going their way. I wouldn’t have signed Dwight Gayle without watching him myself. I’m glad I did!” One thing’s for sure: this episode of EastEnders is far more exciting than the real thing.