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Monday, you can hold your head, Sheffield Wednesday, stay in bed
Ah, the magic of the FA Cup. I refuse to call it a giant-killing, despite it objectively being one, but it was fucking great, wasn’t it?
Last Sunday started with some incredibly sad news, as it was announced that Darren Beckford, one of the stars of our early 90s Premiership team, had died aged just 59. Like many fans of our vintage, my abiding memory of him is his winning goal at Bolton in the 1994 FA Cup quarter-final, in a game where we were totally outplayed, which booked our place at Wembley in the semi-final. By coincidence, there was an article on him in the November edition of the Boundary Bulletin. Left Field have paid a lovely tribute to him here. RIP The Bear.
📸 Colorsport/Shutterstock
On the field, the day could not have got off to a better start. I’m gutted that I was too hungover to make it to watch our women’s game v AFC Oldham, because it was an absolute stormer. We were 5-0 up inside 17 minutes, with a brace from Ruby Crossman, and goals from Lacey Webb, bang-in-form striker Chelsea Cook and Amelia Garvey-Robinson. Kayleigh Webb made it 6-0 on 25 minutes, and Cook got her second a minute later. Caitlin Knowles made it 8-0 half an hour in.
📸 Oldham Athletic
Now, some teams might think about taking it easy in the second half with that scoreline. Remember when Liverpool went 0-5 up at Old Trafford in 2023 and basically stopped playing and just practised passing triangles for the last 40 minutes? Yeah, our girls didn’t feel like doing that. Crossman got her hat-trick three minutes after the restart, and Paige Stopford made it 10-0 with over half an hour left to play.
📸 Oldham Athletic
Obviously, we brought a load of subs on to let everyone join in the fun, and Holly Forder-Brown scored three minutes after coming onto the pitch. Melody Seagrave made it 12-0, it was only right and proper that Cook got her hat-trick as well, and Olivia Newton rounded off a 14 (FOURTEEN!) – 0 win. Good lord. They’re playing Avro in the Open Age Challenge Cup at 2pm this Sunday at Little Wembley. Come down, you won’t be bored.
A tough act for the boys to follow. The TNT Sports presenters were heading to set up as we were walking to the fans’ bar, and I was hugely star-struck at getting a “hiya, you OK?” from England legend Fara Williams. Congratulations to Harry Kane on his 126th cap this week, but he’s got a way to go to catch up to her 172. They did some filming in the bar, and it was only out of love and respect for her that I didn’t start a chant of “David Rock, is a wanker, is a wanker”.
Andy was star-struck too. He had a great birthday weekend, thanks to all who sent their best wishes.
Our starting line-up was unchanged from the Northampton game, while Sheffield Wednesday’s included former Oldham player Davis Keillor-Dunn. I told anyone who’d listen that he was nailed on to score and to put their house on it. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a gambler.
We started brightly, and seven minutes in, we saw that rarest of things: not only was free-kick awarded for a foul on Fondop, but the offending player – Bernard – was booked. No free hits on God’s Number 9 on this sabbath.
There were two big tests early on for the referee (whose name I don’t know, and that’s how it should be). In a precursor of what was to come later on in the game, Slattery went down very easily in our box under a perfectly good challenge from Norburn. The ref was, rightly, having none of it. Norburn then launched the ball up field to Fondop, who outmuscled the defender, and was then brought down by their keeper just outside the box.
Now... the keeper didn’t get the ball and would have been sent off if the foul had been given (as God’s number 10, Glenn Hoddle, insisted it should have been on the commentary). On the other hand, Mikey did kind of look like he’d decided to go down as soon as the keeper came out rather than try to take it past him, and it was really annoying that, when the ball broke loose, Mikey was on the floor when he would have had an empty net to put it into if he’d managed to get up. Frustrating on many levels.
Glenn Hoddle said that Maynard-Brewer was rolling around because he knew it was a foul, but it turned out he was in fact injured and Wednesday had to bring on the sub keeper, Trueman, for only his second ever appearance for them (his first in a real competition, given that the other appearance was in the EFL Trophy). Scott-Morriss stung his gloves with a shot from the right of the box, and it was good to see him getting forward more.
Early in the second half, Valery went down in the box, and the referee quite correctly awarded us a free-kick as he was pulling Robson’s shirt. Barry Bannan didn’t look quite as decrepit as he had in pre-season, and his shot drew a good save from Hudson an hour in.
Shortly after, we took a deserved lead. Sutton played Chilvers in down the right, and he played a great ball into the box. Fondop couldn’t quite get on the end of it but took the defender out, and Kavanagh was perfectly placed (as he often is) to put it away. The celebrations suggested that whatever beef there was between them has been well disposed of.
Hammond came on for Chilvers on 70 minutes and was uncharacteristically poor. I’m not going to dig him out, as it really wasn’t like him. Everyone has their off days.
We could only hold onto our lead for 10 minutes, unfortunately. It was too easy for them to play the ball into the six-yard box, and of course it was Keillor-Dunn on the end of it. It was a great finish on the turn to be fair, and he raised his hands in non-celebration. I’m not sure how I feel about that to be honest. I know how I feel about not taking my own advice and having a bet on him scoring, though.
Mellon saw that the game was petering out and we were losing momentum in the last 10 minutes and decided to fuck shit up. I’m not sure what exactly happened between him and Slattery, but they put their heads together in that daft rutting-stags-locking-horns way that footballers do, and Slattery – who had form, both in this game and previously – went down like a sack of shit. It was hardly Francis Begbie, and personally I think it should have either been a yellow card for both of them or a red card for both of them, but if you stick your head on someone, you can’t really complain too much about getting sent off.
It was arguably a masterstroke by football genius Micky Mellon. It was very noticeable that our players all piled in, led by their captain, which doesn’t happen if the manager has lost the changing room and the players aren’t getting along. And it got a lot of tired legs fired up going into another 30 minutes of football.
Hawkes came on for Pett at the start of extra time, possibly with Mellon screaming furiously at Brabin from the stands. Nevitt came on for Kavanagh on 96 minutes. A bold move, bringing your penalty taker off six minutes into extra time. It suggested we weren’t planning to have the game go to a shootout.
The players were visibly tiring. Scott-Morris was cramping up but soldiered on. Monthe took one for the team and got booked for pulling Fusire back on the halfway line to stop Wednesday hitting us on the break. It was an excellent foul, capping off an excellent performance, and he’s looking back to something approaching his best. And he wasn’t done.
With ten minutes to go, Norburn played a free-kick just outside the centre circle into the box. Monthe played it across goal, and the keeper punched it off Fondop’s head, but only as far as Will ‘Roberto Carlos’ Sutton, who headed it in. Fucking get in.
The last ten minutes were a little reminiscent of Wembley. Every time we belted the ball out of play, I thought of Jordan Rossiter. I hope he’s having a lovely time in Florida.
The players gave everything. Fondop could barely move in the last five minutes; Monthe looked like he was feeling his hamstring, which raised the terrifying spectre of having to bring Temple on. We held on, thank fuck, and Mikey managed to summon one last drop of energy to do the fist pumps with Drummond. It was a triple-triple fist pump, with MOTM and match-winner Sutton getting in on the action. Lovely stuff.
📸 Oldham Athletic
Mellon obviously wasn’t allowed out after the game, so Brabin was sent out to hail our grit, determination and character. He was full of praise for Sutton: “a real rock… I’m probably Will’s biggest critic at times, but that’s cos I’ve got a lot of belief in him”.
The Warrington Beckenbauer was still processing what had happened but was justifiably delighted: “what a performance from the lads, what a shift”. He said he wasn’t worried when they scored and always felt confident, except when he got his head on the ball in the box, and he thought he’d headed it over: “luckily I didn’t fluff it and then it was pure emotion from there”. It certainly was. He was very diplomatic when asked if he prefers playing on the right of a back three – “I’ll do a shift wherever I’m asked to play” – but said Daniels is great to play alongside.
All in all, a very pleasant Sunday evening. Worth skipping your roast for. Hilariously, in the fans’ bar afterwards, Sky Sports were showing a documentary about Duncan Ferguson which included the clip of what he went to prison for. Now THAT was a headbutt. You’d have fucking known about it if a Scotsman had actually stuck one on you, Slattery.
Our reward for our heroics was…. Grimsby away in the second round. Two trips to Grimsby in December? Football gods, you spoil us.
Apparently, we played in that Pontins-League-esque competition on Wednesday, and I have nothing to say about that, other than it’s lovely to see Yoganathan doing so well, and to see that he remembers us fondly.
Have a great day out if you’re off to Shrewsbury today. Hopefully we fare a bit better than we did there last season. We’re not going, having opted to do Rotherham away instead. Have a peach bellini in the market hall wine bar for me, won’t you? Bet I won’t be doing that in Rotherham. And, as always, KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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