Emley travelled to Essex early in 1970 for an FA Trophy replay against a Dagenham team who had already defeated the team that beat Emley the previous year, Barking. The first game at the Welfare Ground the previous Saturday had ended goalless. It had also ended in some acrimony with Emley accusing Dagenham of time-wasting and feigning injury and Dagenham unhappy with what they regarded as dirty play from their Yorkshire opponents. A local Dagenham paper reported that “Emley’s tactics were ruthless to the point of brutality, and while the referee, Bradley came under fire from the Dagenham supporters, he was in an intolerable position and apart from abandoning the game there was little he could do”.
So, the replay was played in a tense atmosphere and again had its share of controversy. The pitch was very wet and quickly degenerated into a “morass” according to reports. But this did not excuse the defensive errors that meant the game was over as a contest before half-time. Emley did get off to a bright start, forcing an early corner, but on 5 minutes Brooks scored for Dagenham after a fumble by Casson, though he claimed he was fouled. Emley came back, but Dagenham’s pace continued to threaten. The game was getting tetchy and as the report at the time said “Greaves and Smith foolishly involved themselves in a display of mud throwing”!
Soon afterwards the game exploded when Pamment and Moore chased a ball which resulted in Moore crashing into the perimeter wall. Moore was injured and a member of the crowd grabbed Pamment while others threw punched at him, joined by Dagenham’s Robertson. Though the incident was accidental, the referee booked Pamment and the game restarted. Robertson went unpunished. Pamment had been involved in many minor incidents prompting the newspaper report to state “This sort of thing used to happen to Leeds United players when Billy Bremner was marked as a dirty player – but he settled down and now Leeds are one of the cleanest and most successful teams in the league. Let’s hope Pamment can see the light!”
The incident seemed to affect Emley more than Dagenham and two more goals by Brooks just before half-time killed Emley’s hopes. The first was the result of a poor back-pass by Greaves and the second from a corner. Matley was replaced by Brook at half-time but any hopes of a revival were snuffed out by a Leakey goal straight after half-time to make it four. Emley didn’t give up and continued to create chances, but Leakey’s second goal on 78 minutes was the final nail in the coffin. Dagenham went on to reach the final, losing to Enfield, 5-1, at Wembley.
Team: Casson; Hall (D), Ellam; Wood, Hall (J), Matley, Morley, Greaves; Brookes, Pamment, Kettlewell. Sub: Brook.
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