QUOTE:
Is there any truth in the stories about people going straight from the match up to Staines and getting tickets from there last night?

Yes. And it's thanks to the good offices of one such individual that YMG and I will be there on Saturday, as long as the weather permits the game to go ahead - some of the photos from the game between Staines and Ramsgate show alarming amounts of surface water on the pitch and it's heavy rain on the forecasts for the next three days.

I don't know what sort of segregation measures Staines will have in place. Apparently the tickets are all the same colour and come with no instructions regarding what turnstile they correspond to, so it's likely to be fairly chaotic, much like when we went to Fisher two seasons ago. Considering that if you factor out the visit of AFC Wimbledon back in December Staines average home attendance this season has been around 350 it ought to come as no surprise that the ostensibly "Staines" tickets will largely find themselves in the hands of Wimbledon supporters on Saturday.

NHH is enirely right about the, lets say "idiosyncratic", performance of the ref and one linesman last night. And almost certainly correct about the causes of it, but some of the overlooked handballs (including one right before they pulled a goal back) were enough to make one wonder. That said, his use of the cards was entirely appropriate, even if our solitary card was for dissent after another truly bizarre decision.

We did wobble quite noticeably after they got one back and they had a glorious opportunity to make it level almost immediately after, but their centre back sent a free header about 8 foot wide from no more than 8 yards out. Which was a relief. That apart we were generally pretty comfortable even though they threw everything they had at us.

Oh, and Jon Main's superb last-minute clincher is viewable here, although the camera angle doesn't really do it justice.

Still, no triumphalism. There's a very tough job still to do against a team who are on the back of a run that's seen them lose only one of the last 13. We are still second favourites to go up and a lot rests on the shoulders of Mr Unlucky, Steve Ferguson and how he does against the occasionally lumbering Staines fullbacks.

Fuck me, I'm excited.