Incompetence

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I'm back in Dartford for a few days, and it's been pretty good 'holiday' so far. On Friday night, my dad and his mates had a joint 50th birthday party over at Princes Park, then on Saturday night it was time for a traditional night out in town with the lads.

I needed a drink or two having witnessed one of the worst refereeing performances known to man earlier that day. Dartford's home game against Wealdstone (my first of the season) must have been an absolutely fantastic spectacle for the neutral, but it was pretty hellish for the Darts' fans.

We suffered a sending-off after about five minutes, and for the rest of the game it was really ten-against-twelve. I've never seen more wrong decisions made in the course of one game. Goal-kicks instead of corners, fouls given the wrong way, bookings for diving (after blatant illegal challenges), two decent penalties turned down, bad offside flags from the linesmen... in the heat, and in a breathtakingly fast-paced game, it was a fantastic effort from Dartford to come away with a 2-2 draw.

Credit must also go to the fans: "the choir" put in one of their best performances and spurred-on the lads from start to finish. We had an unusually low crowd (under 1,000) but you wouldn't have known from the noise.

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