So how’s the head today? Has it sunk in yet? For those of us lucky enough to be at
Sixfields, we saw something that will take some beating. Maybe we’ll never see
anything like it again – for a few weeks at least! In the town that’s home to a certain brewery,
this was truly a case of if Carlsberg did FA Cup away days…
Where to begin? So much to process, we promise we will get it all down by about the 6th or 7th blog. Maybe
get the one gripe out of the way early. The pre-match arrangements were a bit of a
shambles. Not so much the decision to frisk
(smuggling in those flares must have been, um, uncomfortable) but then forcing
early arrivers to cram into a narrow fenced strip with no toilets and a 30
minute wait to buy a drink. Less of a fan zone than a holding pen for illegal
migrants. Not good.
Our support was, of course, phenomenal. Long before kickoff it was kicking
up a racket that pretty much held for the full two hours ahead and was picked
up very nicely by the TV mikes. This wasn’t your typical ‘big day out’ minnow
club, with their small hardcore swelled by floating neutrals, our stands were packed with big bellied old bastards who knew all the songs and had muscle
memory of days like these. Been there, done that, wearing the old replica shirt!
The BBC, scratching their heads for a balanced punditry
combo, weirdly opted for a kind of Wycombe love-in, pairing Akinfenwa and
Ainsworth. At first it definitely seemed
their sympathies leaned towards the brotherhood of League pros trying to avoid
a banana skin. Not much was said about the threat that we posed apart from namechecking the couple of players viewers might have heard of. By half time their
old school wisdom was that the only way back for us was to go direct and
“ugly”. Clearly neither had done their homework on this Poppies side, who far
from going ugly just upped their passing accuracy and inspired growing belief.
To be fair though, by the end they had correctly diagnosed
that we can, in fact, play a bit, and were hailing Lavs for his bold approach.
Before the game, most of us to be frank would have settled
for a performance and a goal. When it was clear we’d got both, thoughts turned
to could we do it in the 90? Extra time, wasn’t
that when superior fitness usually told?
Someone behind me mentioned Leeds. Nobody seemed to have told this
Poppies team. Mixing unbelievable graft
with class and composure, this was a display that tore up the plucky
underdog script of backs to the wall, shots hacked off the line and occasional
long punts downfield.
Though there was one delicious late hoof by Hooper that ate
up a few precious seconds!!
The memory of the final whistle and the long and joyous
scenes sums up everything that has sustained us through the bad times. For
anyone who was there on that terrible final day at Nene Park, this was your
reward. Or on a cold night at Corby. Or getting drenched at Latimer Park watching
us take on Chalfont St Peter. We hung on in there, often questioning our sanity
but hoping and praying that one day it would be worth it.
Saturday November 2 was that day.
So onwards we go for another tilt at a poor unsuspecting
scalp (we hope) – although after Sixfields it’s a fair bet that absolutely no
one will take us lightly.
"Viewers in the Northampton area may find some scenes disturbing"
