AFTER an FA Cup giant-killing, finishing runners-up in the conference last year and numerous appearances on SKY and BBC, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Garry Hill's work at Victoria Road was done for a year. But Hill's biggest task of the last 12 months, if not his entire football career, will begin tonight (Thursday) at 8pm.

Hill has made it no secret that Division Three is his ultimate ambition and that he wants to achieve that with Dagenham and Redbridge and tonight he takes his first step towards living that dream.

Yet before the dream, the Daggers have been having something of a nightmare on the pitch but Hill knew what he was doing. He explained that in his eyes the job was already done, hence a reshuffled side and a few scorelines the fans would rather forget:

"The last three games have been very frustrating from a managers point of view. We've had to play three more games than what we would have liked.

"I made seven changes to the side on Saturday, Mark Stein was at home watching Grandstand and we were also without Danny Shipp, Ashley Vickers, Lee Matthews and Tony Roberts."

To his credit, Hill made no bones about his masterplan to finish in fifth place, working out that Morecambe who had looked set to finish second would then be drawn against the Daggers.

"Everyone does their thing their own way, I think Morecambe have put their strongest team out every game and that's up to them. The games don't mean anything to me after I'm in the play-offs and I've got who I want.

"I don't think it helps when the Conference League accept a match game kicking off at 5.35pm on the last Saturday of the season. There was no way Chester were going to get their way, there was only one person who was going to get his way, and that was me and I'm happy with that."

So, as predicted, Dagenham now take on Morecambe, but why the headstrong desire to take on the team that have taken four points off them this term? After all, so did Doncaster.

"If we'd won on Saturday we could have found ourselves playing Doncaster. Morecambe against us over two games will suit us and we'll let the two big giants of Doncaster and Chester battle it out and we'll see how we get on with Morecambe and go on from there.

"It will still be hard against Morecambe, they're a very good side on their ground and we've got to be on top of our game at Victoria Road on Thursday."

If Hill's tactics on the pitch pay off as well as they have off of it, then the Daggers may well find themselves in Division Three: "Everyone has been looking at the play-offs which were all decided two weeks ago. I think everyone has been playing cards, and I think I've been putting more cards out than anyone else."

Let's hope there are still a few aces up his sleeve then.

May 1, 2003 10:30