Tuesday, 14th January 2014
Third Round Proper Replay
Peterborough United v Kidderminster Harriers
London Road
Peterborough
PE2 8AL
K.O. 7.45pm
Half time 1-0
Final score 2-3
1-0 Tommy Rowe 26
mins
1-1 Michael Gash 48
mins
2-1 Jack Byrne 52
mins
2-2 Britt Assombalonga
74 mins
2-3 Joe Lolley 76
mins
Attendance 3,483 (away 660)
Miles travelled approximately 160
2am. Already? Really? There’s got to be a better way to earn
a living… But until I find one, it’s a 3am start and a day out in Croydon. I’m
not sure what I did to deserve that but there you go.
Well last week I had 4 drops while this week I had 6 drops
with drop No.6 taken off, so I’ve only got 5 drops. Really, you couldn’t make
this stuff up. Witham away anyone…?
You’ve got to love Croydon and their one way system. Oh look
“Kidderminster Road”, it’s a sign, it’s a sign, it’s a road sign… Ha! Ha! Ha!
By 3pm I was back at base and by 4pm I was on the way to
Peterborough and by 5.45pm I was pulling onto the car park.
In one of those weird twists of football fate, the only time
I’d done Peterborough was in the FA Cup, Rd3, Tuesday 13th 1998,
Peterborough v Walsall, the game should have been played on Saturday 3rd
1998 and for reasons which I can’t remember, it was postponed until the 13th.
By the time the game was played we already knew that the winners would be away
at Man Utd in Rd4. Just for the record 12,874 fans saw the game, Walsall took
2,281 and Walsall won 0-2 (Peron, Blake). We made one hell of a noise that
night and those that were there still talk about it.
Back to tonight, I was now faced with an issue, go and take
photos while I could and before the place filled up or go and get food and
drink. I decided that taking photos was the better idea and as it turns out I
chose right.
Also, while I remember, since the last game between the two
clubs Kidderminster have sacked their manager and replaced Steve Burr with Andy
Thorne. The Chairman has given a 30 minute interview stating that the club is
not up for sale and neither are any of his players. Joe Lolley has been sold to
Huddersfield Town and plays his last game for Kidderminster tonight. The
Chairman has given Kidderminster fans the chance to travel to the game for only
£5 (which the sign of a good Chairman and the sign of a good businessman) and
they beat Salisbury 3-0 at home on Saturday moving them to 5th in
the league. Peterborough lost 2-1 away to Swindon.
As I walked around a dark and very cold London Road trying
to take photos I couldn’t help but notice how stupidly cold it was. It was
painfully cold, bare flesh started to sting within minutes. I’m not exactly
sure why it was so cold. I spend all day delivering frozen goods so I don’t
normally feel the cold, but I felt this…
I bumped into the Peterborough mascot, which for all the
people that don’t know is a bunny and when he’s in character he really is in
character and more power to his elbow for doing so. I was later told his name
was “Peter Burrow”.
Well that’s something you don’t see every day, a
hairdressers at a football ground. No, really, there is a Ticket Office, Club
Shop and a hairdresser.
A building site greeted me as I made my way to the away end,
the Moy’s stand is being replaced with a new development. I climbed up onto the
fence to take a look and some photos of a three sided ground. I’d seen the
artist impression of the new stand and it looks impressive.
While I was busy climbing all over the fence on the back of
the building site taking photos and generally getting in the way of the
stewards who were starting to take their places, Kidderminster arrived. Their
team coach is better than the Walsall one, which is embarrassing to say the
least.
Then a weird thing happened people came up to me and said
hello, shuck my hand, wished me well and continued on their way. I have no idea
who they were and why they knew me. Then in the middle of all of that I bumped
into some of the Peterborough stewards who I’d meet two Saturdays ago. They
came straight over… I turned around and bumped into some of the Kidderminster
staff. I thanked them again for all of their help, patience, trust and
friendship.
Kidderminster fans suddenly started to arrive in force, it’s
at that point I noticed a complete lack of Peterborough fans. I hadn’t noticed
it before. Where were they? No, really, where were they…
Into the ground. Bloody hell. Being inside the ground and
looking at the building site was even more weird then looking at it from the
other side. The stand that we were in was old, very old, wooden seats on cast
iron frames. Crumbling concrete. Peeling paint. Just how bad was the other
stand if they demolished that one and left this one standing?
More photos and more chatting to more stewards and still no
Peterborough fans. Considering they were at home, to a Conference team with the
next round away at Sunderland you would have thought they would have turned up
in force, well you’d have been wrong. Shameful, yeah that the word for it,
shameful.
The Kidderminster end was buzzing (for the record we were in
the North Stand from the by-line to the half way line). Singing. Chanting.
Laughing. Joking. Hundreds of exited people. Stories of their individual journeys
to the ground were told. Speed camera flashes going off. Tea’s missed. Sickies
thrown. Cars abandoned in side streets.
Finally the KO arrived. I have no idea who won the toss but
they didn’t change ends and didn’t Peterborough show Kidderminster a hell of a
lot more respect than what they did two Saturdays ago. Peterborough were stiff
and solid and kept their shape like their lives depended on it. The game of
football became a game of chess. Neither side wanted to mess this up. It was a
little bit like watching 11 aside fencing, cut, thrust, parry, back and forth
while conversely just like something that wasn’t stiff and solid there was no
real penetration.
Kidderminster fans continued to create a fantastic
atmosphere but behind the goal it was silent, empty, a void, a vacuum, a huge
black hole where not even light could escape from, while the other was a
building site…
Still there was one Peterborough fan with a drum. He tried.
Wherever you are, if you’re reading this. Well done sir.
The pitch was boggy. Players lost their footing very easily.
The noise from the Kidderminster fans continued.
On 26 minutes Peterborough scored a soft goal. The kind of
goal that gets you dumped out of the Cup. It was a nothing goal. The kind of
goal that every football team on planet Earth has conceded. Peterborough broke
down the Kidderminster left, a very deep and high cross came in, it was
drifting towards the far post and as the keeper, the defender and the forward
went for it, everyone missed it, well, apart from the forward who somehow
smuggled the ball across the line.
It was such a shame for the keeper who had played so well in
the games I’d see him.
The Kidderminster fans went quiet and stayed quiet and
continued to stay quiet. It wasn’t looking good. Peterborough didn’t capitalise
on their good fortune and to give credit to Kidderminster, they didn’t panic
they just continued with their game plan. The teams went into half time at 1-0.
Half time came and went and the second half started as the
first ended before taking a twist.
On 48 minutes Gash got the ball in midfield and passed to
(Jackman?) on the left wing who delivered a stunning cross, two Kidderminster
players pulled three Peterborough players towards to near post, Gash continued
his late run into the box slipping his marker and meeting the ball in the middle of
the area thundered a bullet of a header passed the keeper who waved at the ball
as it past him.
If Brazil score a goal like that in this year’s World Cup it
will be on News at Ten.
Drinks and pies went everywhere. Kidderminster fans went
mental. Here we go. GAME ON!
“It’s happening again,
It’s happening again,
Oh Barry Fry, it’s
happening again…”
And four minutes later it did just that. Kidderminster broke
out of their own box and down the Peterborough left. Lolley ran the length of
the pitch before rolling the ball along the 18 yard line where Byrne hit a left
foot shot back across the keeper to his left.
BLOODY HELL FIRE! Hysteria… complete, total hysteria. Saying
it’s going to happen. Hoping and dreaming that it’s going to happen is not the
same as being there when actually does happen.
Let the party begin. The noise just didn’t stop. The game
continued and now that Peterborough had to score twice to go through they had
to come out and attack and that put a new spin the night. This put
Kidderminster in the driving seat, they didn’t have to panic and they didn’t.
They continued to play their normal passing game.
PENALTY! Oh no… Peterborough were going nowhere with the
ball and instead of just ushering the player and the ball away from danger a
very clumsy attempt on the ball was made and I can honestly say that I’m closer
to ball right here and now than what the Kidderminster player was.
74 minutes. 2-2. Back to square one.
Straight from the kick off Kidderminster went and won a
corner and took a short. Just how stupid was that. No one ever scores from a
short corner. The ball was passed across midfield and back again, before Lolley
picked it up on the Peterborough left, he cut inside and let fly with a left
foot screamer and just like the penalty, I’m closer to the ball now than the
keeper was then.
The Kidderminster end erupted. Beyond mental, proper tits up
and tonto. The Peterborough players genuinely dropped in size. Every one of
them seemed to shrink in height. It was over and everyone in the ground knew
it. Even though the goal was timed at 76 minutes, giving us at least 15 minutes
to go, there wasn’t going to be any come back from this.
It’s weird how football works like that sometimes. We all
knew it was over, it didn’t stop the nerves from creeping in as we all waited
for the finally whistle.
HOW MANY MINUTES!? Four? FOUR!? Where the hell is Albert
Einstein when you need him? His Special Theory of Relativity is all good and
very well, but I bet he couldn’t explain how four minutes passes slower than
240 seconds…
The scenes that greeted the finally whistle will stay with
me for the rest of my life. The sounds, the noise, the screams, how do I find
the words, where do I find the words, to try to describe what I witnessed.
I do remember catching the eye of the Chairman who was
standing proud as a peacock, smiling like the Cheshire Cat, looking at the
Kidderminster fans that were going at it like the National Lottery balls as they
bounce around that rotating plastic drum.
By the time we’d got out of the ground some of the players
had come back out to warm down.
I finally left Peterborough at 10pm. I laughed all the way
home. Kidderminster away to Sunderland in Rd4. I thought back to that very
first game on that Friday night in August, Hoddesdon v St Margaretsbury and
that shirt in the frame from Ware v Kidderminster, when Ware had got to the
First Round Proper. If you had said to me then, that… oh you know where I’m
going with this…
I arrived home at 11.30pm. I completed my paper work, set my
alarm clock, a quick cup of tea and I stickered into bed at midnight.
5am. Already? Really? There’s got to be a better way to earn
a living… But until I find one… I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Noggin xx
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