Everything was set. We survived the hell of the 28-hour tube journey east and the sun was doing its best to put 1,200 Brentford fans packed into Dagenham & Redbridge’s Victoria Road ground in a jovial mood ahead of a potential promotion-clinching victory.

My neighbour on the terrace remarked that “it feels just like Cambridge”, and I suppose he was half right.

If you squinted at the tiny stands and narrow terraces making up the Daggers’ home, you could have been forgiven for thinking you were back at the Abbey Stadium in 1999.

Certainly, the mix of pre-match tension and barely restrained euphoria that enveloped our end of the ground before kick-off also harked back to that glorious day. But, sadly, that was where the similarities came to an abrupt end. Brentford’s dire performance saw to that.

Dagenham is a cursed place for the Bees. After the floodlights debacle, I didn’t think the spirit-crushing trip down the District Line could get any worse – I was badly wrong. The Daggers played very well and fully deserved their victory but, like an Italian army, we didn’t offer much resistance.

Having returned from holiday earlier in the day, jetlag made the experience all the more tortuous, and our failure to secure promotion was the biggest anticlimax since the last England World Cup campaign. Sadly, it is a feeling we Bees fans know all too well.

Of course, promotion – and the league title – are still very much within our grasp and Andy Scott is right to want to banish negative thoughts with the finishing line in sight.

We have done a great job at bouncing back from setbacks throughout our run to the the top and I am heading to Darlington with hope in my heart – but I am sure the gaffer would forgive me, and other supporters, for feeling a tad nervous.

I realise I have gone on ad nauseam this season about how Brentford fans are genetically disposed to fear the worst and, even though cheerfulness has kept breaking through this term thanks to sterling effort of Scott and the boys, I always carry with me that nagging fear that things could go horribly wrong at any given moment.

Even if there was only one game to go and we were 53 points ahead with a goal difference of plus 521, I would still be kept awake worrying that the Bees might pluck failure from the jaws of success.

But this time, things will be different, won’t they?