Tony Evans reviews the matchday programme from Dover Athletic
DOVER ATHLETIC V TRANMERE ROVERS
Tuesday 17th April 2018 (postponed from 30th March)
PRICE: £2.50
PAGES: 40
Understandably, Dover kept to the programme originally printed for the postponed Good Friday fixture, which meant that some content was slightly out of date. Sadly for fans at The Crabble, their team had lost two of their intervening matches, meaning that the positive situation regarding The Whites' play-off prospects in several columns had been tempered somewhat by the time Rovers made their return trek to Kent. Ultimately, as we know, they were to miss out agonisingly on goal difference! What hadn't changed was the stern challenge that The Superwhites were going to provide and both Jason Burns from the Media Team and manager, Chris Kinnear, urged the fans to play their part by creating an intimidating atmosphere inside the ground to inspire their team against us. Suffice to say, they must have felt slightly let down after listening to the SWA completely out-sing the home crowd for the whole ninety minutes!!
No doubt family and friends of Mitch Pinnock were keen to snap up copies of this particular issue of COYW, owing to the fact that the man in question was pictured in the centre page poster, proudly wearing his England kit during his debut for the C team in the recent match against Wales.
ON THE BALL
- Radio Kent's Matt Gerrard contributed an excellent “National League Chat” page, on which he compared different managerial styles and pulled no punches in his dislike of Jose Mourinho's tendency to publicly criticise his players, particularly when it may help him to deflect attention away from his own shortcomings. Dover's own boss seemed much more to Matt's liking and he revealed some interesting comments Chris Kinnear had recently made to him in an interview marking his 1500th match as a manager. Matt also sportingly congratulated Kent rivals, Bromley, and particularly ex-White, Tyrone Sterling, on reaching Wembley and wished them well in their FA Trophy Final against Brackley on 20th May.
- The cleverly set out “60 Seconds With” article featured Australian kit-man, Richard Harvey, who suggested his lookalike, Pep Guardiola, would be the perfect choice to play him in a film of his life!
- The brilliantly titled “Hook, Line and Stinker” gives Goalkeeper Coach, Lee Hook his opportunity to take an irreverent look at life behind the scenes at Crabble. In an attempt to live up to his billing as the club comedian, Lee certainly made several players the butt of his humorous tales, but he's got a long way to go before he reaches Andy Mangan's standard!
THE NUMBERS BOARD
Home Club News - 16/20
Away Club Coverage - 11/20
Other Features - 14/20
Layout and Design - 13/20
Value for Money - 16/20
TOTAL - 70/100
Having put Halifax's programme under the spotlight when we visited The Shay for our FA Cup tie in October, we have now completed our reviews so it's time to announce our awards! With an impressive 86 points out of 100, Wrexham and Leyton Orient tied for second place, but just pipping them on 87 was Ebbsfleet! Let's hope that's their only success this season!