Dagnam 'till I die!

There’s something in the Essex psyche that embraces the imperfection of life. Why else would a fan at Dagenham and Redbridge, bottom of league one, be banging a huge drum as if it’s the Noucamp or the San Siro?

Dagenham might only get crowds of around 2,000 (or 4000 when it was 99p admission earlier this season) but it’s friendly, stewards stop to chat, and the fans at the side in the North Stand create an atmosphere that would shame the Arsenal Library.

What’s striking compared to a Premiership game is that the crowd is much younger — the drummer looks about 19 — and there’s more laughter and camaraderie.

The match against Yeovil begins with rhythmic drumbeat of tribal Essex Man, including a fat bloke in Dagenham shorts and a Vincelot replica shirt and another youth with gold and black bling headphones.

The chants are either a staccato “DAGNAM!” or an elongated “Dagg-er-nam! Dagg-er-nam! Dagg-er-nam!”

“Come on the ”Nam!’ shouts one fan, evoking an unlikely image of grizzled war veterans on the Heathway.

YOU'RE NOT VERY GOOD
Yeovil’s Williams slices a one-on-one dismally wide and is greeted with chortling mirth and a double chant of: “You’re not very good! You’re not very good! You’re not very good! IN FACT YOU’RE SHIT! And you know you are… You’re shit and you know you are…”
“
Only veteran keeper Tony Roberts keeps the Daggers in the game. Against the run of play, the home side score through Vincelot.

“ZIGGER DAGGER ZIGGER DAGGER OI! OI! OI!” chants a bearded man with gutteral gusto, in a variation of the old 1970s chant.

Only Yeovil equalise almost immediately through the tricky Oli Johnson, who's on loan from Norwich.

A cry of “Sort it out!” comes from the terraces — Essex vernacular for retrieving the situation by any means necessary.

There’s a big cheer from the Dagenham fans when the half-time score reads "WBA 3 West Ham 0". As Richard Keys/Alan Partridge knows, relative success breeds envy.

There’s more enjoyment when a Yeovil striker heads hopelessly wide of an empty goal. “How wide d’you want the goal?” is the chant.

Then things go mental as Jonny Nurse turns his man to fire into the bottom corner. He runs to the side of the ground and embraces the Dagenham fans, earning a yellow card.

BUT NOW HE'S ALRIGHT
The crowd senses a home win and there’s a sense of delirium. The appearance of sub Bas Savage sparks a quirky chorus of:

“There’s only one Bas Savage!
He used to be shite but now he’s all right!
Walking in a Savage wonderland!”

Yeovil go close and the fans sing, to the tune of Go West, “Hands up if you thought they’d scored”

The Daggers’ Femi Ilesanmi earns a Vieira-style chant of “He lives in Becontree!”

BOOM BOOM BOOM! The drum beats on. “DAGNAM!“

TOURETTE'S SYNDROME
The tension is too much for the fans: “Let’s pretend we’ve got Tourettes!” comes a chant followed by a torrent of industrial language.

And then a rousing chorus of “DAGNAM TILL I DIE! I’M DAGNAM TILL I DIE!”

Rarely can good old Dagenham have evoked such cries of undying devotion. The evening sun casts an effulgent light on the Victoria Road pitch. It's all rather enjoyable. The Big Society is right here on these terraces. And it's chanting, "Who the f**k are Barnet?"

The whistle blows and the fans surge towards the Bury Road end, banging their drum and stopping to turn to the sparse gathering of Yeovil fans and sing to the tune of I Wanna Go Home, with yet more self-deprecating humour:

“We’ve won at home! We’ve won at home! How shit must you be? We’ve won at home!”

The only way is weight loss and becoming a gay icon?

Still the stars of The Only Way is Essex are enjoying their celebrity status. Sam, Lauren and orange Lydia (who only appeared late as Arg's love interest) feature in Heat explaining how they've all lost at least 5lbs through personal trainers, circuit training and energetic rushing to the opening of an envelope. Although thankfully Sam insists she won't lose any more as she has "real boobs" and doesn't want them to waste away.

Meanwhile Mark Wright and Kirk Norcross are on the front of Attitude magazine in their underpants — apparently filled out with several of Wham's old shuttlecocks — as unlikely gay icons. "If it's good enough for David Beckham then it's good enough for me," says Wrighty.

And ITV has just been auditioning for a new series of TOWIE… What have they started?

Welcome to Romford

All of Essex life can be found in the back of Sharif’s cab. Welcome to Romford on Channel 4 had some great moments from A1 cabs and their drunken clients.

The blonde Essex Girl who punched her boyfriend outside Yates’s because she found out he’d been having an affair, internet daters on the razzle, the bloke who thought he’d been run over but wasn’t sure, an arrest for messing about with a cone, and statements like “She makes the Elephant Man look like a sex machine!”.

Sharif said he’d been in the country 11 years and had developed a pleasingly phlegmatic approach to his job, along with some natural Essex wit and a flirtatious line of banter with the formidable Kelly behind the call-out desk.

It was all rather enjoyable in a 3am desperate for a pee can you stop at the next roundabout mate kind of way. If Travis Bickle had worked in Romford he might have learned to lighten up a little and enjoy the cabaret.

Footballer shuns Sugar Hut

West Ham's James Tomkins, an Essex Man, was asked by a fan in the club programme if he would guest star on The Only Way is Essex.

He answers: "I just watch that show and cringe, to be honest. It's good TV because it makes you cringe so often… I watched it once but I promised myself I would never watch it again. I don't go to those sorts of places as they are far too 'Essex', if you know what I mean? I'd rather chill out by having a quiet dinner with my girlfriend."

Hmm. Amy and Sam may have to work hard to get a date with Tonks on this form...

Romford in the back of a cab

The media's fascination with Essex continues. This Friday, Feb 4, sees a new Channel 4 documentary First Cut: Welcome to Romford, at 7.30pm. It films the drivers and passengers using A1 cabs in Romford, now famous as the home of Jessie J.

The Evening Standard writes that it will feature, "shouting, drinking, tears, arrests and rather a lot of amorous behaviour". And presumably the odd chunder after Saturday night beneath the plastic palm trees.

Director Simon Smith says: "I'm from Romford and I really like the people. In recent times Essex has been made a caricature, with everyone wanting to be celebrities. I wanted to show people being normal."

Let's hope they don't pick up Mark and Lauren/Sam/Lucy from The Only Way is Essex then...

Dave, 44, seeks Essex Man

There’s a vacancy for an Essex Man in David Cameron’s inner circle. Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson might not be the best advert for Essex, but it’s interesting that a bunch of old Etonians needed a down-to-earth Essex geezer alongside all that Bullingdon Club stuff.

On the BBC News Nick Robinson emphasised that Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World now embroiled in the NOTW phone-tapping furore, was an “Essex boy” and that he was valuable to the “posh boys” in the Cabinet because he provided a direct link to working class core Tory voters in deepest Essex.

The Guardian described Coulson as an “Essex Man’’ who was brought up in a council house and had a “street-smart background born of Beauchamps comprehensive in Wickford”. While Cameron and George Osborne were at Oxford University, Coulson was at the Basildon Evening Echo before graduating to the Sun’s bizarre page.

It’s interesting how deep the Essex stereotype has penetrated the media; an Essex comprehensive now equates with “street-smart”, whereas a Cornish comprehensive certainly wouldn’t.

Posh bloke seeks bit of rough with no baggage. Maybe Dave should check out Matt Cardle’s right-wing credentials…

Dagenham divas

Thinking about Dagenham after my recent visit, it's bred an inordinate amount of talent. A week ago Billy Bragg, born in nearby Barking, explained what made him a singer to the Guardian: “A desire not to go and work in Ford factory in Dagenham. That’s what everyone where I lived was being educated to do. To get out of it, it seemed I needed to be a boxer, a footballer or a rock star. I didn't want to get punched on the head, and I’m not that good at football so I went for the music.”

Sixties legend Sandie Shaw worked for six weeks as a punch-card operator at Ford, and at the end of 2010 revealed to Desert Island Discs that escape propelled her entire career. Dudley Moore was another who left to achieve stardom, along with the great Peter Cook, managing to combine cleverness and filth in some memorably obscene recordings such as the filthy Derek and Clive Live before becoming an unlikely Hollywood star in Arthur.

Like the coalfields of the north-east, Dagenham has unleashed an extraordinary amount of footballing talent.

England manager Sir Alf Ramsey, the man who won England the 1966 World Cup, came from Dagenham, although it didn’t sound like he did. Sir Alf famously had elocution lessons that resulted in him sounding like a bizarre combination of Parker from Thunderbirds and Bertie Wooster, and all with a Captain Mainwaring-style air of pomposity. Throughout the swinging sixties he maintained his upwardly mobile received pronunciation indicating a deep insecurity about his working class origins.

Ramsey’s captain Bobby Moore was raised in Waverley Gardens off the lorry-strewn River Road in Barking. Hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst was also a Barking lad.

Former England gaffer Terry Venables was born at Valence Road and through a variety of business schemes such as selling thingmywigs, setting up Scribes West bar and buying Spurs, demonstrated the eye for a deal beloved of a self-made Essex Man.

Tottenham legend Jimmy Greaves grew up in Daggers and during my childhood, according to local gossip, moved down the road to a house near Upminster Common. After recovering from alcoholism — West Ham suffered his final season — he used his Essex wit to create a new career as the cheeky half of Saint and Gravesie on ITV’s On The Ball. The walruss-moustached Greavesie also became a beloved Sun columnist.

Arsenal and England’s Tony Adams grew up at 6 Foxlands Road, the son of an asphalter, playing for the youth side Dagenham United alongside West Ham’s legendary Steve Potts.

Chelsea’s John Terry is another son of Dagenham and so is Liverpool’s Paul Konchesky. Paul’s mum Carol displayed the more abrasive side of the Dagenham resident when she made the headlines defending her son from stroppy Scousers on Twitter.

Dagenham has also featured in song more than most towns. The Stranglers wrote Dagenham Dave about the eponymous character Dave, a Mancunian scaffolder who once worked at the Ford plant. Dave followed the band everywhere and eventually committed suicide jumping off Tower Bridge. Morrissey also penned a song called Dagenham Dave, this time with more homo-erotic tones.

More recently we’ve had rapper Devlin and I’m a Celebrity winner Stacey Solomon, complete with her Malibu and pineapple celebrations down the pub.

Is there a bigger talent factory anywhere in Britain?