Brian Flynn's a football
genius!
Wrexham 1 Gillingham 0
Rob Slade
Just had one of the funniest and excitingest and
maddest days of my life. Started with my text message circular to: Andrew Bellamy, Brandon
Cook, Dave Clark, Neil Duggan, Firmo, Sarah Gale, Ian Holden, Matt Harrison, Matt Stewart,
Jo Tomlinson, Andy Turner, Trevor Yate (dontcha just love alphabetical sequences?) which
was...
Match played early, Gillingham won 5-0, see
you at Wembley. UTC. Claret Cymraeg.
Brandon wrote back:
Match played early, Burnley won 17-0, see
you at Ewood. UTC. MK Claret.
Which I forward to the mailing list.
Anyway, fantastic hot sunny day and got to the
Racecourse with loads of picnic food and drinks to soak up atmosphere etc. Made the bad
mistake of sitting next to very smelly and very demented old man who turned out to be an
ex Wrexham player (Albert Parker), who threatened to spoil my day a bit by making me vomit
and telling me several times where the changing rooms used to be and showing me several
times the watch he got as a leaving present from Wrexham AFC. At a normal bog standard
football match I would have done by duty and given this poor humanoid a cuddle but not
today... sorry Albert.
The Wrexham goal was one of the best I've seen
all season by the very good anyway Mark McGregor, shaved head by the way. (Seven of the
Wrexham players had newly shaved heads - this the main reason for their run of good form.)
(Otherwise difficult to explain, except for outstanding and battling and skilful relative
newcomer Robin Gibson... Darren Ferguson was average.) Where was I? Oh yes, Mr McGregor's
goal. After finally dispatching Peter Rabbit with a pocket sized revolver he drifted into
the centre about 35 yards directly in front of the goal dancing left and right a few times
before blasting the ball into the top left corner of the goal, through about 10 assorted
Gills and Wrexham players. It was heading for the geometric centre of the goalmouth before
gently curving upwards and leftwards a few mms beyond the diving fingers of Vince Bartram.
Then all Hell let loose, honest. Fast and
furious and skilful football from all 22 players. Loads of shots on goal, loads of
unbelievable misses, loads of unbelievable saves. And about the same time that I messaged
everyone with 1-0, Firmo and Jojo were telling me and by a few text messages as well
(thanks everyone) that Burnley were losing 1-0. Most of the 2nd half Wrexham were under
siege and I sent a message saying this. Jo sent a message back saying that Burnley were
under siege. Andy Turner message back: But still no goals? I said, in my head, I'll tell
you when there is a goal, Mr Turner!
Then Burnley equalised and the Gillingham fans,
there in force, went grimly silent. Then Burnley went ahead and the Gills went even more
grimlier silenter. They all had mobiles as well (I spoke to a lot of them afterwards). In
the first half the Gill fans were a beautiful sight to watch: thousands of blue and yellow
coloured shirts and flags and singing and cheering and dancing fit to burst. (And after
they lost: sang loud and long: Ce (C'est?) sera sera (is this French?), Whatever will be
will be, We're going to Wem-ber-ley...)
Me and the kids were as tense as it's possible
to be cos each side could have scored a bucketful of goals, perhaps the Gills a slightly
bigger bucket. At one stage the Wrexham players were just falling down in front of the
torrent of Gill shots on goal. Brian Carey fell down and was hit several times on various
parts of the body before he had chance to stand up again.
I didn't think Wrexham would make it to half
time. But after the siege of most of the second half they did in the last 20 minutes
manage to make a few breakaway attacks and brilliantly wasted loads of time with the ball
at the corner flag and also missed a few clear goal chances, mainly cos of Connelly being
too selfish (normal this). Craig Faulconbridge, a Wrexham substitute, is one to watch.
Asaba is a class player and Gillingham a very
good side. Like against Burnley they defended very well, and were only beaten by a magical
goal.
One of the best bits of the day were the text
messages and phone calls. Although I've only just begun to work out how to hear someone on
a mobile phone in a very loud football crowd: you press the speaker very close to your
ear, bury it inside your ear in fact. Is there anyway of increasing the volume of the
speaker?
At the end Jojo rang me to wait over the phone
for the final whistle. I think there was about 6 minutes of injury time and at least 3
mins of the Wrexham match after Burnley won, which of course included about 10 Gill
corners and 3 free kicks on the edge of the Wrexham penalty area and potentially about 20
Gillingham goals. Yes much worse than the last part of the Plymouth match or the play off
final at Wembley. There were a few Wrexham supporters who know I'm a Claret. But everyone
else was amazed that three of us were screaming for Wrexham and shouting advice to the
Wrexham players and jumping up and down, and dancing at the end. Not the normal routine
for Wrexham supporters.
Andrew Bellamy's message after the match was a
good one (Ee-I, ee-i, ee-i-o, Up the football league we go). (When we win promotion, This
is what we'll sing, We all love you, We all love you, Stanny Ternent's King!!! Yessah!!!).
I forwarded this to everyone and got a message back from Andy Turner: Who's That?
Some of the messages in the match, after the
match, give some of the atmosphere:
Dave Clark: 1-2 Little
Dave Clark: 1-2 final score. Yes
Sarah Gale: Up!
Jojo: Wow. Brilliant day. Mega atmosphere at the
end.
Neil Duggan: Ta for the scores. I owe U a beer.
See U in Div 1. Super, Super Glen.
Jo 2: (Message censored for sexually explicit
language).
Firmo: Yessss.
And in response to my message that I was
celebrating with beer and tennis at Wrexham Tennis Club...
Firmo: I'm drinking beer on a train.
Andrew Bellamy: Drinking lots of ale. What else?
******* brilliant day... :-)
Brandon: (7.30pm): Did we win then? I was
watching a film on BBC2.
Made a point of talking to various Gills fans,
some of whom gave Joshua and Theo Jaffa Cakes, and we had a good chat and laugh about the
injustices of life. But they OK about the playoffs, playing Stoke in the semis, and hoping
for not Millwall in the final. None of them had ever met Burnley fans before dressed in
Gillingham and Wrexham colours. (My M&S rugby shirt was Gill colours and Joshua and
Theo were wearing Wrexham team shirts.)
I'll go and put three tired and happy boys to
bed.
Up the Clarets, in fact.
Claret Cymraeg (Rob
Slade)
The Promotion
2000 Archive
