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    My write-up of last night's madness Vs Bolton Archived Message

    Posted by TrueFaithBook on 18/11/2021, 3:00 pm

    Hi all, hope your heads aren't too sore this morning because I'm afraid this is a long old post. That was genuinely one of the best games and best atmosphere's I've ever experienced. Loved it. If you enjoy the write-up below please show some love over on the facebook, it really does help: https://www.facebook.com/truefaithbookmcr/posts/208137571453215

    Cheers, hope you enjoy.

    Match number 35 kicked off at 3pm. York City were a team full of giants, Curzon Ashton put their bodies on the line, and the whole thing ended in a goalless draw. Then match number 36 kicked off two hours, twenty minutes, and one rushed trip along the M60 later. Stockport County had enough chances to win it, but Bromley nicked one back at the end, and again the points were shared. When I got home from that double header on Saturday evening I had a lot to say. I planned to write about Adam Lakeland (Curzon) and Dave Challinor (County) and their 2nd games in charge at their respective clubs.

    I even toyed with the idea of getting all soppy and philosophical again; I’d watched two very different games finish in exactly the same way, with two draws and one point a piece. But it wasn’t that simple. It never is. There are thousands of contextual variables that transcend the final result and produce winners and losers of their own: stature and expectation, performance and momentum. But none of it matters anymore. None of it matters and those words will never be written because match number 37 got in the way, and match number 37 was 120 minutes of gut-wrenchingly essential football: it was Stockport County against Bolton Wanderers, live on the BBC.

    There’s something romantic about the term ‘FA Cup Replay’. Perhaps it’s rooted in times gone by, when games wouldn’t go to extra time and penalties but instead would be played again and again until an eventual winner was found? After all, there’s nothing more alluring than the past. Or perhaps it’s thanks to the modern day, and the 21st century knowledge that although the game itself is an untameable and unpredictable mystery, we can say with complete confidence that only one team will be making their way through into the next round.

    I stood thirty-persons-deep in a queue for the turnstiles, surrounded from every angle by the soundtrack of a looming, inevitable kick-off. People greeted people; colleagues, cousins, your Dad’s mate that you call your Uncle. Your actual Uncle. That bloke you’ve known for years but you’ve forgotten his name and it’s too late now to ask it. People checked their watches; wondering if they were going to make it in time, analysing which number turnstile to queue towards, which one’s moving the fastest, “I told you we should have gone for 11”. Occasionally, when the angles lined up right, like an eclipse between the punter and the Park, I could see through a gap in the bricks and glimpse the lucky thousands who’d already made it in; they waved flags of blue and white, marshalled by high-vis jackets coloured orange and green, the whole place hummed with anticipation. I already had my suspicions, but by the time I’d got to my seat - with just a minute to spare - I could tell that we were in for a special night. If things went County’s way, Edgeley Park was going to erupt.

    The first goal happened in - what I used to think was - slow motion. There’d only been time for one rendition of ‘The Scarf My Father Wore’ before a player wearing yellow began marauding forward towards the Cheadle End. And then he kept going. And kept going. And as more than 8000 Stockport fans were left waiting for a tackle that never came, the Bolton contingent went absolutely berserk at the far end of the ground. They were 1-0 up within two minutes.
    Four minutes later it was 2-0, with Ashley Palmer slicing at a clearance in his own six-yard box and looping it over his ‘keeper as he dived down to collect it. At this point my Dad, who was watching on TV at home, texted me “Comedy o.g x” and in any other circumstance I’d have agreed with him, but it was Edgeley Park’s first sell-out crowd since 2008 and in no reasonable timeline should the ground have cause to fall so flat with just six minutes on the clock. Nobody, and I mean nobody, had accounted for this. Although the highlights I watched this morning tell me otherwise, my memory itself has completely blocked out any noise from the Bolton fans for the 2nd goal. All I really remember is the complete absence of noise around me, a rare and non-hyperbolic instance of genuinely stunned silence.

    Paddy Madden brought it back to 2-1 with a penalty. We all jumped around and grabbed at one another and it was great. At the very least, it was something. There was hope. Naturally, Bolton scored a third goal and in doing so they taught me the true meaning of slow-motion. Their keeper hoofed a long ball forward in search of Bakayoko’s run and for the briefest of seconds the play looked entirely ordinary. The ball was in the air, County had a man under it, and all was well with the world. Then at the speed of a dramatically blurred shot from a low-budget 80’s action movie, Ethan Ross ran off his line like he’d been stung up the arse by a hornet and found himself marooned a good ten yards into don’t-use-your-hands territory. The freeze-frame of the moment he realised he’d made a mistake will be burned into 16,000 blue and white retinas for a lifetime, but the one person in the ground who didn’t see him coming was Mark Kitching, who quite understandably headed the ball backwards into the area you’d tend to expect your goalkeeper to be.

    And so with 28 minutes played, it was 3 goals for the Horrible Howlers and 1 for Paddy’s Penalty. Scott Quigley started and finished a move right on the brink of half-time to make it 3-2 and although he may have motioned the crowd as he wheeled away in celebration, his encouragement fell on deaf ears. Because they were way, way ahead of him; the first 45 minutes were electric. The next 45 were nuclear.

    A goal was coming. I was absolutely sure of it. Yes, County were the better team as the 2nd half went on but there was something far less concrete than that at play too, an intangible, emotional sense of certainty to things; 3-2 down, with a new manager and a sold-out crowd, live on prime-time television… it was never, ever going to end there. The atmosphere ramped higher and higher. County knocked on the door. The set of concrete steps to my left in the Cheadle End’s upper tier became more and more densely populated with supporters. Where they came from I don’t know, but it felt significant. It felt like hope, like strength in numbers, like preparation for the complete and utter bedlam that would be sparked by an equaliser.

    It took a lifetime to get to 3-3. With 85 minutes played, Ash Palmer met an inswinging corner and powered the ball into the roof of the same net in which he’d scored an own-goal earlier. The celebrations were, quite frankly, ridiculous. If by some turn of events there was a newly-arrived extra terrestrial amongst us at Edgeley Park last night, it was at this point that they’d have scurried back to their spaceship and marked their file on planet Earth “BEWARE: INCOMPREHENSIBLE”. You’ve got to love this game. You’ve got to love football. That equalising goal was pure, zero-to-hero, guttural redemption. It was poetry. As such, the reaction wasn’t a thoughtful or intelligent one. The best celebrations never are. It was just joy. Complete and utter joy.

    As I’ve mentioned in my other posts, I’m not actually a County fan. I’ve watched them plenty of times this season and obviously I’ll root for them when I do, but I have my own team and I’m perfectly happy to keep it that way. Baring that in mind, it’d be wrong of me not to mention that as the final whistle blew with the scores at 3-3, I could feel my heartbeat through my knee-caps. I didn’t even know that was possible, but when football is played like it was last night, what does ‘possible’ mean anyways?

    5 minutes into extra time Scott Quigley gave County the lead for the first time in the tie and the young boy in the seat behind me who had done so, so well keeping up with the singing up until this point finally lost all composure. He was silent as the ball hit the back of the net, pausing a moment before emitting a good old fashioned, top-of-the-lungs squeal once he’d got his head around what had just happened. And d’you know what mate? I’m a little bit jealous, because sometimes words just aren’t enough. Two-hundred-and-nine hard-fought minutes into a two-legged, twenty-plus-thousand ticket cup tie, Ollie Crankshaw raced through on goal and - icing? Have you met the cake? - smashed the game beyond any doubt, right in front of the Cheadle End.

    After the game I walked back to the Prince Albert, where I’d begun my evening a few lifetimes ago. Once inside, I queued for a pint of lager. People around me were greeting each other with hugs. A group of younger fans came in and brought the “Bolton get battered everywhere they go” chant through the front door with them. The scenes were beyond joyous, they were idyllic. We may as well have been wearing flower necklaces, holding hands and skipping around in a circle. I took my drink and made my way into the beer garden. There, I bumped into Phil, who’s a new friend but a long, long time Stockport supporter. I popped the obvious question and asked how he was feeling, and this is what he said: “After years of being laughed at and shat on, and losing 2-1 to Vauxhall Motors - I mean bloody Vauxhall? - it feels good… it feels good”.

    Stockport County 5 - 3 Bolton Wanderers

    17 11 21

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