One word. Wow

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"