The Auto Nosewipe Beermat Trophy has become our competition and with our fourth successive area final resulting in a home 2-0 win against Stockport and an away 0-0 draw we must surely win it this time. I now humbly apologise for predicting a 3-2 aggregate defeat. The most memorable moment for me was the Stockport player who decided to punch Stephane in the home leg. Was he mad, or what??!!
However, the behaviour of the police and stewards at Stockport was beyond belief. Thousands of Blues travelled down for the away leg and the ground was opened early to admit them. This was the only good decision they made all night, because it very quickly became apparent that the allocation of 3000 was insufficient for Carlisle fans, but the away standing terrace was still being added to. I believe that the only thing which prevented another Hillsborough was that the entrance to the terrace was up steps and from the side. Despite many passionate please from fans to the stewards to open up empty seated areas in a stand adjacent to the away terrace, this section remained closed until some fans took the matter into their own hands and took the seating by force of numbers. While I cannot condone this, it was an inevitable consequence of the pathetic policing and stewarding. For several of us it appeared that the Club was willing to take our money when the safety limit had clearly been exceeded and were unwilling to relieve a clearly dangerously overcrowded area. The only person who came out of the situation with any credit was Mervyn Day who came out to calm the situation. It certainly appeared that the Stockport stewards were never in control of the situation.
On the negative side for us, there were clearly a few idiots in with the Carlisle fans who could easily have cost us the Wembley place. I am thinking here about the throw-in during the second half when the ball went into the "claimed" seated area and the fans kept the ball. When the throw in was taken with a replacement ball, some brain-dead, neolithic shit-for-brain moron threw the other ball on as well. Now, if this had sufficiently distracted the Carlisle defenders so that Stockport had scored, this may have given Stockport enough momentum to win the leg and perhaps the Northern final, sending Stockport to Wembley instead of Carlisle. These same idiots invaded the pitch before the final whistle when it looked like Stockport had scored. I hope that they are identified, fined and banned from future CUFC games.
As for the game itself, we were superb! For most of the game Deano was a God and stopped 3 almost certain goals, but occasionally the Devil in him surfaced as well with some dire passing. Peacock ran himself ragged for most of the game and Sumo had good and bad spells. Stephane was (as someone described him) the Eifel Tower of our defence. In summary, I'm surprised there weren't any heart attacks!
Stockport county manager Dave Jones was quoted in the Manchester Evening News on 26 April as saying "The game was lost in the last few mad minutes of the first leg at Carlisle. Coming back from two down is a big task, although we did have enough chances." Hmm, but they just weren't good enough to put them away, were they?!
In summary, here is the record of our 1996/97 Road to Wembley:
| For | Against | ||
| Rochdale Walling, McAlindon |
Home | 2 | 0 |
| Hull City Pounewatchy, Conway (3) |
Home | 4 | 1 |
| York City Archdeacon, Thomas |
Away | 2 | 0 |
| Shrewsbury Town Archdeacon, Walling |
Away | 2 | 0 |
| Stockport County (1st leg) Archdeacon (2) |
Home | 2 | 0 |
| Stockport County (2nd leg) . |
Away | 0 | 0 |
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