No Daggers for Hill, just plenty of praise

Yet Hill believes his own move into a full-time role, backed by the club's directors, is another important step on their ambitious road.

At Victoria Road, with its smart new stand, a record 6,000 full-house, a six-figure windfall from the latest Cup run and admirable organisation from an outfit blindly determined that the weather wasn't going to halt their big day, it was easy to get the feel of a little club going places.

Hill, a 42-year-old with no coaching qualifications but a commitment, common sense and intensity which clearly imprints itself on his charges, runs his own finance company which is apparently involved in debt recovery, though publicly he has always kept mum about its exact nature.

Recently, though, he has found trying to fit in the demands of his footballing job with his day job (not to mention his commitments as a rugged midfielder for Sunday League side Woodham) has just become too taxing.

"It's been a part-time role only in name," he explained. "Just as we had some tired boys out there, I'm tired too.

"More mentally tiring than physical, especially with all the excitement and hype that went with the build-up to this match. But I've been very successful in life and I can pack up my business, knowing that I'm at a football club where I can work with fantastic people. You've got to be happy in life."

There were times on Saturday when you wondered just what difference it might have made had his players had the luxury of training every day together without having to rush from, say, a day on the building-site or at the bank. "The difference would be in technical skill," reckoned Dagenham's goalscorer Junior McDougald.

"When you're training every day you might not give away the ball so much because your technique would be better."

None of his team-mates share the luxury of McDougald, who at least has a ball at his feet most of the time in his job as a background extra in Sky One's footballing drama series, Dream Team.

Never mind the mythical Harchester FC, though.

For a moment, he lived his own real-life soap when he deservedly put the Daggers ahead after 18 minutesof incessant pressure. Only 12 minutes later did reality bite when Sixto Peralta's stooping header went in via the post in Ipswich's first attack of any note.

Jim Magilton's volley just before half-time then spoiled the fun completely.

Even so, if Mark Janney had converted his sitter immediately afterwards or if Lee Goodwin had buried his free header after the break, it would have been intriguing to see how Ipswich might have responded to being pegged back again.

Reprieved, they belatedly began to assert their superiority and cut tiring Dagenham to shreds with Peralta and Marcus Stewart giving the result its lopsided look. Make no mistake, though. Although no Premiership side has yet lost to a non-League team, it will happen sooner rather than later.

Okay, so Dagenham didn't come as close as they did against Charlton last season, but their only misfortune this time, you suspect, was to not have been drawn against Derby!

Yet Hill's men will probably now not be the team to achieve the feat, because with a bit of luck and a lot more of the "great camaraderie and spirit" which McDougald talked about, this time next year they should be in the Football League, dreaming full-time rather than part-time.