AFC HORNCHURCH came to Princes Park with a simple game-plan – board up the goal and accept the first gift to come their way.

It worked.

For a long period pre-match, the fixture was in doubt but hard work by ground staff and volunteers turned the saturated turf into a very playable surface, allowing the game to start two minutes early.

Kicking to the Academy End under a Battle of Britain sky, Darts were first to show but chances at either end were few.

Darts did have one from the famed dummy-run free-kick, but the key element in the deception is now elsewhere and the eventual shot at goal was scrambled away by a relieved goalkeeper.

For the Urchins, Mark Janney and Duane Jackman were lively but never really got the better of the home back four.

One thing which was noticeable was the top end penalty area had a spongy and slidy consistency which, on 43 minutes led, to the only goal – a Billy Coyne centre-cum-shot which skipped and slid past a dozen or so players and beyond Andrew Young.

Two minutes after the break, Darts had a free-kick just outside the area in front of goal.

There was a sideways tap, but the shot at goal was high with the ball bringing a shower of debris from the covering roof down on the heads of the serried ranks of the Dartford faithful behind the goal.

It didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the choir in the slightest.

Had this gone in, then obituary-writing could well have been postponed for another day.

Darren Behcet in the Urchins’ goal then went into time-wasting mode, which was derided by the home support but unpunished by the referee.

Hopefully this was brought to his attention by the match assessor at the post-match debriefing because an early yellow card for the visiting custodian would surely have geed up the offender.

In the end the status quo was almost completely maintained, as Hastings, Tonbridge, Wealdstone and Boreham Wood obligingly lost, enhancing Dartford’s goal difference into the bargain.

Dartford: Young, Burgess, Gross, Flanagan, Coyle, Dafter (White 63), Hayes, Harris (Crouch 83), May (Haworth 63), Burns, Noble. Subs not used: Beales, Kessell. Att:1,224.