Views from the Sieve

What on earth has happened to this once great football club…. Players allegedly refusing to go over to the fans at full time. I’m fearing for Monday - these lot are 4th in the league and are unbeaten.

It would be great if Lee Bradbury clarified what he was referring to yesterday when he made made those comments.

len wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 9:55 am It would be great if Lee Bradbury clarified what he was referring to yesterday when he made made those comments.

I doubt he will clarify, but, my prediction is that the new ownership is collapsing or they are pulling out of the deal. If that is the case, Club Underdog will become the new owners again, unless if they don't want to do anything with Dagenham anymore.

This hasn’t been confirmed, but someone has shared with me that it is because ‘of the players and supporters. Some of the players didn’t want to approach the supporters to clap them at the end of the game, and there was a row with someone in the tunnel’

Now if this is true (I noticed at the last home game some of the players ran straight to the tunnel before being pulled back), then this manager and players need a talking to as to what makes this club great.

If they are not proud to wear a Dagenham shirt and face the fans, even when things are not going well, then I am not sure they should be at this club. (I do not condone the abuse some of our fans shout either).

It is Lee Bradbury’s responsibility to make the players act like a team on and off the pitch. If he can’t do that - and starts blaming the fans from day one - then his days are numbered. It has been noted at the home games he has already repeatedly had a go at the 4th officials. On one occasion Gill tried to pull him back, and Bradbury pushed him away.

I made a joke at the first home game that I would have words if he didn’t acknowledge the fans behind the home dug out before the game, there would be trouble. I don’t know if he did it at the last game as i was 7 mins late! But up until very recently (too many RIPs) the majority of those in these seats are some of our longest serving supporters.

Any Daggers manager or players need to respect the fans. You may not like some of us - I don’t like some elements of our fanbase - but we’re an essential part of the club that needs to be rebuilt.
Yes, respect works both ways. The team earns our respect by putting in a good days work, regardless of the end result, although the results do matter.

I’m proud to be a Dagger. Are they?

Auntie Merge wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 10:54 am This hasn’t been confirmed, but someone has shared with me that it is because ‘of the players and supporters. Some of the players didn’t want to approach the supporters to clap them at the end of the game, and there was a row with someone in the tunnel’

Now if this is true (I noticed at the last home game some of the players ran straight to the tunnel before being pulled back), then this manager and players need a talking to as to what makes this club great.

If they are not proud to wear a Dagenham shirt and face the fans, even when things are not going well, then I am not sure they should be at this club. (I do not condone the abuse some of our fans shout either).

It is Lee Bradbury’s responsibility to make the players act like a team on and off the pitch. If he can’t do that - and starts blaming the fans from day one - then his days are numbered. It has been noted at the home games he has already repeatedly had a go at the 4th officials. On one occasion Gill tried to pull him back, and Bradbury pushed him away.

I made a joke at the first home game that I would have words if he didn’t acknowledge the fans behind the home dug out before the game, there would be trouble. I don’t know if he did it at the last game as i was 7 mins late! But up until very recently (too many RIPs) the majority of those in these seats are some of our longest serving supporters.

Any Daggers manager or players need to respect the fans. You may not like some of us - I don’t like some elements of our fanbase - but we’re an essential part of the club that needs to be rebuilt.
Yes, respect works both ways. The team earns our respect by putting in a good days work, regardless of the end result, although the results do matter.

I’m proud to be a Dagger. Are they?

that makes sense to be fair. What's the point of signing for Dagenham, when you can't be bothered to go to the fans after the match.

It does look that Lee Bradbury is caught between (a) unhappy players, (b) frustrated supporters, and (c) unresolved ownership distractions.

I didn’t go yesterday and listened to our mixer commentary and according to this we had a lot of the ball and then Hampton took the lead against the run of play. We then had lots of chances and eventually equalised. At this stage it sounded like there would only be one winner and was a complete shock when they scored their second goal.
It didn’t seem as though it was through a lack of effort that we lost.
We do however, unfortunately have a minority of supporters who think they can make abusive and vile comments to players that have given their best on the day. In any other workplace this would not be tolerated.
I do hope Lee Bradbury is talking about this which is perhaps the lesser of the two evils rather than the new owners dropping out.

I expect everyone - management, players and fans - to be unhappy and the only real fix is to win some football matches.

We do have a small number of fans who think that it is acceptable to scream really bad stuff at our own players. It is rare that is deserved, and certainly not after four games. There's a few in our squad who I would judge don't have the heart in it, but the manager appears to have dropped most of them at the first opportunity. Most of them are trying but just not doing the business at present.

The recruitment hasn't allowed us to hit the ground running, and it remains to be seen if that will rectify itself. I certainly don't think it's the sort of start you need as a new manager in a club when you're going around talking about promotion. He may have been better served signing one or two more 50 games a season types, but we can't change the past.

It baffles me that we allowed our only fit target man to go down the road to a direct rival (Umerah to Maidenhead). I'm probably in a minority that thought he was a decent player, I accept why most fans had enough of him after his misses during the run-in, but I am certain we'd have more points if he was still here.

I think we have a number of good players but as often has been the case in recent years, there's no balance. We lack power outside of the back 4. We lack dribbling ability - people will point at Scott but this is a kid stepping up from the Isthmian who isn't ready to start. Haigh is the only viable attacking midfielder, I still can't have Khaleel who looks very easily dissuaded to me. And despite some excellent defenders we seem to lack the basic desire to really keep the ball out of our own net. I'm talking Phipps mentality.

The only person who can really fix all this is the manager and I hope he does.

Agree with a lot of what you say Mark and in particular that Umerah was a player worth keeping and better than what we have now. With Andy Carroll and Timothee Dieng out injured along with Reggie Young things do look difficult unless we can perhaps add to the squad.

Harrym4737 wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 9:57 am

len wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 9:55 am It would be great if Lee Bradbury clarified what he was referring to yesterday when he made made those comments.

I doubt he will clarify, but, my prediction is that the new ownership is collapsing or they are pulling out of the deal. If that is the case, Club Underdog will become the new owners again, unless if they don't want to do anything with Dagenham anymore.

I think there's a real possibility that the new owners, whoever they are, may be pulling out/already have pulled out. Why have we heard absolutely nothing from them? We have no idea who they even are. That's if they exist at all?

Some good, thoughtful posts there from Merge, Len and Mark.
Prompting me to add some further musings:
The disgraceful, vile abuse that many witnessed at Solihull has clearly not taken long to reappear. I get why people are frustrated and angry - we all are - but such abuse, both online and at matches, is not 'freedom of speech', it is just unacceptable, vile abuse. Those responsible need to desist; they are harming the reputation of our club.
Exceptionalism; once again I get 'Proud to be a Dagger' but do we really think there are not supporters at other clubs asking for the same passion, spirit? We all want 100% effort but there are probably half a dozen sides who think they can win this division and more than a dozen aiming for the play offs. We all have similar aspirations. Let's remember that before we criticize so readily.