The anxiety
started early and unexpectedly. Wembley announced a ‘100% bag check’ and my
mind started racing. What did they know? Did ISIS consider the lower league’s
showcase final to be a ‘soft target’? I’ve never been that bothered about
watching the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, I definitely didn’t want to die doing
it.
Then there
were the 35,000 Oxford fans travelling down the Chiltern line. Twitter ablaze
with ungodly start times; would I be too late leaving when I’d planned? What if
I couldn’t get on a train? What if I lost my daughter in the crush? A sense of dread about everything apart from the game itself.
In the end ISIS
didn’t attack, we did get on the train and my daughter had the time of her life.
The place buzzed in the spring sun. We passed a playground full of children
dressed in Barnsley and Oxford shirts. They played together, like hamsters in a
cage, oblivious to their rivalries until some Barnsley kids, completely without
malice, commandeered a roundabout chanting ‘Oxford BOO’. An anthropologists
dream.
It was more
like a works outing than a football match. People ate lunch in Prezzo, perused
the shopping centre shops and stopped to chat awkwardly with people they only
vaguely knew because they happen to sit near each other at home games.
A cup final
devoid of tension; while the Milk Cup Final in ’86 was the pinnacle of our
history and the play-off final critical to our very survival, this wasn’t even
the most important game of the week.
But it was
difficult not to be impressed by the mass movement of the yellow army.
Reassuring that, though you and I choose to watch Mansfield at home over the Bake
Off, many thousands of others are with you in spirit; today they’re here in
body.
I met Brinyhoof
at the Bobby Moore statue, we bumped into each other with our dads at the Milk
Cup Final 30 years ago. Last time it was accidental; this time it was planned;
completing some kind of circle. We headed to our seats via escalators, bar
code scanners and glass doorways. This isn’t 1986 anymore, this isn’t any kind
of football we’ve grown up with.
Oh what a
joy, a bank of yellow and blue, a happy, united, contented club. A glorious
noise. We see a couple of people wearing Weiner Neustadt t-shirts; what
Brinyhoof calls ‘Our Sex Pistols at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall’, one day we’ll
all claim to have been there, at the start. But, for now, this, we’re all here
for this.
In the
stadium the pre-match entertainment is underway, it’s cheesy and choreographed,
but absolutely necessary. Wembley is so comfortable it feels like you’re at the
theatre, it’s tempting to sit passively and enjoy the show. Something needs to
ignite it. There are flags and flames, women in tight tops and short skirts,
men in military uniform – an anthropologists dream.
Eventually
the players appear, Wembley’s great design flaw is that they come on from the
side of the pitch rather than one end as at the old stadium. That epically long
walk could break players, this short walk from the side doesn’t have the same
effect.
The great
unspoken is finally spoken, Jake Wright drops to the bench. It’s been on the
cards for weeks, he hasn’t done anything wrong this season, but Chey Dunkley’s
form makes him hard to drop. Joe Skarz isn’t fit after a season of sterling
service, life just isn’t fair.
We start
well, though, looking entirely comfortable. After some probing, Alex MacDonald
swings a huge cross over and Callum O’Dowda attacks the ball, beating his man
and nodding home. The stadium fills with noise; O’Dowda, one of our own, belts
down the flank until he’s caught by his team mates. Modern day footballers are
too knowing of the cameras that film them, goal celebrations are
choreographed for the TV, but this is visceral and real. If his team mates hadn’t
caught him, he’d have ended up in the crowd never to return.
Half-time
comes and it’s difficult to imagine being more comfortable in a final at
Wembley. There’s none of the grizzly angst of the Play-off final or the shock
of the Milk Cup.
My
half-time routine was pretty straight forward; a trip to the toilet and then a drink.
I have to queue for both. I walk back past groups of people casually drinking
pints and plastic cups of wine. As I get back to my seat the players are
already out. There are thousands of people still under the concourse as we kick
off, it creates an oddly sleepy atmosphere.
And it
kills us, Barnsley have to come out positively if they’re to get anything out
of the game. We need to be disciplined, we need to slow everything down. Call
it inexperience, but Wembley is a big pitch, legs become heavy, particularly
after a half-time break. We need to hold out for 15 to 20 minutes, control the
game, but that’s not really our game at all. Suddenly everyone looks like they’re
wading through treacle.
In a flash
we’re 2-1 down and then there’s a moment of magic from Adam Hamill. The game
threatened to be a shoot-out between Hamill and Kemar Roofe. Hamill took his
moment, Roofe didn’t, and that pretty much made the difference between the two
teams. Everything else was equal.
Roofe does
make his contribution, providing a perfect cross for Danny Hylton to make it
3-2. In the context of the game, it’s meaningless, but it’s a great moment for
the club and players.
Waring and
Bowery come on, but we’re missing John Lundstram’s more expansive passing. Ruffels
has been excellent but his compact game means the strikers are picking up balls 30-40
yards from goal. Man, it’s such a big pitch.
There is no
Potter moment, no Jeremy Charles moment, the game peters out. I’m not sure I
wanted extra-time, in the end, you know, because of the trains and ISIS. I wanted to win, I didn’t want to lose our
unbeaten Wembley record, particularly not like this, but losing was never going
to be a heartbreaker. I just hope that the players recognise it for
what it is and that it doesn’t distract them from the real objective of the season.
Not just because it’s important, but because we, they, deserve the recognition
for what our club has become in the last 12 months.
1 comment:
Guys, you were a difficult team to beat !!!! Wish we had acquitted ourselves as well as you in our previous two visits here.
Glad we won
Not you.
But you played well.
That number 11 can't had cross a ball!!!!!
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