Between May 2002 and May 2003 Dagenham were the unluckiest team in the non-league. Back in the 2001/2 season there was only one chance to gain promotion and that was via winning the title. They and Boston had a huge tustle to decide who would go up, with Boston eventually winning out but then it was revealed that Boston had used suspect methods to win the title and everyone in the country wanted them to stay in the Conference and Dagenham to come up. Alas, this didn’t happen and Dagenham were forced to reside in the Conference for another year.

Skip forward 12 months and Dagenham had finished in the first ever Conference Playoff Final and they faced Doncaster. After finishing 2-2 in extra time, Dagenham seemed to be destined to go on and win after controlling most of the match, but then Doncaster scored the Golden Goal and were promoted to the Football League.

3 midtable finishes later and then Dagenham finally managed to win promotion, winning promotion via the title by securing 95 points, including thrashing several teams, winning 5-0 twice, 4-0 once and 4-1 five times amongst their highlights. However, hit is nothing new for Conference Champions and the Daggers will hope that they improve upon the fortunes of most of the previous holders of the Conference title.

With the exception of Yeovil, all the previous Conference Champions of the last 5 years have seriously struggled against relegation. Boston, Chester, Barnet and Accrington have all come close to becoming the first side to be relegated straight back. Infact, all the Conference Champions from 1999/2000 to 2001/2 returned to the non-league after a 5 year adventure in the Football League.

Looking at Dagenham’s squad there won’t be a lot of stand out names, infact the only two I’d heard of were Ben Strevens and Tony Roberts, who spent some of his early career with QPR in the Premiership. Having watched them on Sky last season there didn’t seem to be many players who would be able to cut it in the League, and the lack of many players with League experience could see them struggle.

They also off loaded two of their better players last season, George Boyd and Craig Mikael-Smith leaving them in January and joining Peterborough. Although this didn’t effect them immediately, losing players of that quality will eventually show and you need that quality to beat sides in this division. Even the worst sides in this division are considerably better than the vast majority of the sides in the Conference, but most Conference Champions don’t realise that and seem to be under the impression that they won’t pay for their mistakes.

I get the feeling the Dagenham will struggle in their first year of Football League action, with only a late run saving them from relegation and seeing them finish 21st.

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