Controversial Burgers at - Welling United FC

Saturday 29th of August:
Vanarama National League:

Welling United vs Braintree:

Another £5 in fellow Braintree fan Simon's car meant that Welling away was definitely on the cards. 

Since Welling's ground is situated next door to the main road beside the main road we had to park down one of the many residential blocks around the ground.
Approaching the ground I spotted the club shop which was just next door to the club, it was selling all sorts of scarves, shirts and other Welling merch, I bought a programme whilst there which turned out to be a very good read on the way back.

Welling Club Shop

With £5 paid I finally entered and decided to set up the flags behind the goal with Gareth and Maurice. Gareth disappeared for about 2 minutes and returned with a Bacon Cheese Burger in his hand. This was going to be the ultimate taste test for him because travelling down Michael and Simon both had opposite views on it, one hand Michael said It was one of the worst footy burgers he's ever had, where as Simon said that they're the best, it seemed that Gareth agreed with simon, giving it a resounding 10/10 I got one shortly after and totally agreed with him!! Welling's Burgers are class!!

Welling's ground itself has two big seating stands and two standing areas behind both goals, it's sort of a bit bigger than our ground. 

We were coming into this game with 3 great results on the trot, a 0-0 draw against promotion hopefuls Tranmere, the away win at Bromley, and most recently a comfortable home win against Southport.

The game started off with us having the possession, putting balls through, but unfortunately the chances getting blocked or saved and put over for a corner. I really like the Cowley brothers playing styles, it's actually entertaining to watch now rather than Devonshire's hoof it from left back and hope for the best. That's when we starting getting called "The Stoke City of the Conference".

The reason I say this is because they did a new corner tactic early on in the first half. The players all tried to all be in a huddle at the corner of the box then all run across the goal. Unfortunately the cross never reached the players, and always got cleared from the defender at the near post.

Welling had one lucky brake and unfortunately went 1-0 ahead which we shouldn't have let them get.
We immiedietly returned with a low drilled shot from the right hand side of the area, by Michael Cheek. It went under the keeper, and we slotted home the equaliser. Maurice got even it on camera, link at the end.

It stayed like that until the break.
HT: Welling United 1-1 Braintree Town
We changed ends to the bland and boring stand with nowhere unfortunately to hang the flags and took our places for the second half with the rain spitting down on us. We had more chances that kept begging, few shots and corners here and there, but it wasn't as exciting as the second half a lot more sloppy defending which meant welling could easily break away and have a lot of chances themselves.

Suddenly we were on the counter attack and a good drilled shot from Dan Sparkes passed the keeper meant we were 2-1 up.
And That's how it eventually finished. Danny Cowley made it all the more better giving the fans an air fist. He was the most delighted out out of all of us. 3 Wins on the trot will do us nicely.

Heading stopping off to the very impressive welling supporters club, sort of like the one we have at Braintree, a mixture of old Programmes, pin badges and shirts. I got myself a welling scarf to add to the collection, fantastic little shop situated behind the old main stand. With that, we all headed back to the car and we headed home, and on the drive home we of course mugged the supporters bus right off as we passed them. 

It's been a Great little away trip.

Our First Goal On camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sLrP5dmkHc
Rest of the photos:

14 miles the wrong way and Pasties at - Bromley.

Tuesday 18th of August 2015.

 Vanarama National League.

 Bromley vs Braintree.

 I was pondering wether to go to Bromley away on a Tuesday night, but with no where to go and £5 in fellow iron fan Simon's car to the game, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Also coming in Simons car was iron fan and mate Gareth, this would be his first away trip of the season after missing on on coming to Chester. My mate and Iron fan Dan Turner who you usually see on this blog. He's that long haired chap in pictures who never smiles (although he did smile in the selfie at Chester I'll give him that one) was unfortunately coming tonight, he obviously wanted us to win but he did say to me beforehand a little part of him wants us to lose so he doesn't miss out on a class away day.

 The one hour journey down wasn't too bad, much of the discussion between the 3 of us was what the club could do to get more through the gate and me telling them about the away performance at Chester which neither of them went on, However I was in the front which did mean holding the Sat-Nav because Simon didn't have anything to stick it on the windscreen. Unfortunately I did happen to miscalculate a turning off, saying "I think we need to go off here" which was incorrect and we ended up driving 14 miles down the road to Maidenhead, we did get to see the Kent countryside though, which was nice I guess.

To be fair it didn't really matter because we left at about 4:30 so we got to the ground an hour and a bit before hand. Before paying the reasonable price of £5 to go through the turnstiles, the Bromley staff had to check our bags, because apparently the league has now gone completely mental about smoke bombs, every ground now in the national league is littered with "Smoke No Joke posters" after going trough and buying a programme we immediately spotted Maurice, fellow Groundhopper and Braintree fan who appeared in the Chester blog.

The ground itself is actually really nice. One main seating stand where the teams come out which reminded me of the main stand at Bishops Stortford. The one opposite Is a really nice open air standing terrace. Our fans had already made their way over to the terrace behind the goal, next door to the terrace was a fantastic little food stand. I was hoping to get a Pie but all they had were some pasties. Now please, don't get me wrong the pasty tasted fantastic, but the picture below makes it look really unappealing... It's sort of like a kebab, you tell your mate "Oh mate you got to check out this kebab place, they do the best kebabs" then they send you the pic and it looks like complete rubbish... So with that being said, if you go to Bromley. Try the Pasties they taste great.

Going into this game we hadn't won any of our three games we lost 1-0 away at Chester and 3-1 at home to Lincoln however we did draw 0-0 against promotion hopefuls Tranmere the previous Saturday. Bromley had also lost 2 of their previous games, but somehow did manage to beat Wrexham on the first game of the season.

The first half started lively for both teams with Braintree having a little bit more the chances in possession, new loanie boy Jordan Chiedozie look like the main play maker. Most of us found it difficult to pronounce his second name, so I thought of took inspiration from the Chelsea fans about Azpilicueta, and made this chant "We'll just call you Dave. We'll just call you Daaaave. Jordon Chiedozie. We'll just call you dave". Unfortunately no one really joined in, we were all zoned in on this game wondering wether we were actually gonning win this one or at least score a goal... 

But that certain goal did eventually come. A header was stopped with a good save from the Bromley keeper. Dave himself picked it up on the left hand side of the box and put a cross over which found the path of Skipper Kenny Davies who had a shot from outside the box, it was going wide before quickly intercepted by Dan Sparkes who slotted home. We all went mental.

After that both teams had more chances Bromley themselves nearly went down the end and scored with a good shot from one of their players slightly going over the bar.

Our fans were in good voice with the typical "IRON ARMY" chant we always do. and "OH WHEN THE IRON GO STEAMING IN!!" we did put the Bromley fans to shame with our singing cause all they did was just say their name about 10 times over.... 

Going into the break I headed into the club shop. Which isn't too bad to be fair, like ours it has all sorts of pin badges and old football books which are being sold for about 50p or £1. They were mixed in with the usual shirts and scarves, I was going to get a scarf but instead wandered over to some shirts and found that they were selling some signed ones for £5 each. I said to myself "I'll get one at the end" After the match I wandered in the to the club shop and discovered they were all sold out, fantastic logic by me..... I ended up then with the Bromley scar to add to the collection.

We changed ends in the second half and so did the Bromley fans. When we stood behind the goal we were confronted with a bunch of 10 year olds trying to act hard for no reason towards us. All we did was stand behind the goal and they started saying "F*** Off" to all of us...

Within the first 10 minutes of the teams coming back we bagged in a second goal. A shot was saved by Kenny which came instantly back to him, who then passed in in the the air to Jordon "Dave" Chiedozie. who managed to produce over head kick into the back of the net. Maurice managed to catch in on camera, and as you can tell from the noise. We all went mental again. Link at the end. We then taunted the so called "Bromley 10 year olds" stewards eventually came and moved them away, and we started to sing things like: "Back to school on Monday na na na na!!"

15 minutes passed and Bromley somehow managed to pull one back. From then on I genuinely was panicking as they kept going down into our half with balls through to the wing and shots which Will Norris just about saved.

Then we heard the best noise when you are winning away. The final whistle. And as we clapped the Team in we all felt that feeling of happiness again. The feeling that Danny and Nicky Cowley have Finally found their feet at the club. The feeling that we've finally found our shooting boots again. And the feeling that there's better things to come this season.

Dave's goal: http://youtu.be/6jkSsgPD_Gc