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Quite Literally Unbelievable
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Madness
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By:
Eric Hitchmo
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09/05/2011
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More On Port Vale
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"Truly a great escape. What a mental couple of days it has been. Are you like me, still floating from the euphoria of Saturday? Was your day at work today brightened indefinitely by the memories that Saturday has given us? Of course it bloody has. What a beauty. What an experience.
It's in stark contrast to last year where despite survival, there was no massive tidal wave of emotion like Saturday. Last year we had bottled it, this year our team has fought back from an impossible position to finish a point above a side who were eleven points clear of us with seven games to go. The last six/seven weeks supporting this club have been unbelievable. Hope built and built slowly, every goal celebrated wildly, none more so than Izale McLeod's penalty.
Last year I of course went on the pitch, had my fun, but then left almost straight after. I didn't feel I wanted to celebrate it. This was built up from seven games of highs, lows, rollercoaster of emotions. We are staying up, no we're not staying up, Martin Allen is the saviour, Martin Allen's buggered off again, Graz is now in charge, everyone else keeps picking up points as well. It all led to a delicious battle for the neutral going into the last day, but for everyone involved with Barnet, and indeed Lincoln, it was to be 90+6 minutes of hell.
The day started slightly differently for some us, as we were due to appear on Soccer AM. Quite the experience, and a perfect way to take our minds away from Underhill. The run up to 3pm would have been horrendous had it not been for the distraction of being on live international television! I only hope we represented the club well and provided plenty of entertainment!
Sky provided us with transport so we were back at Underhill before 1pm. The Soccer AM experience was still keeping the nerves at bay, alongside the several pints sunk before the game. I knew things would become tense as soon as I stepped into a packed stadium. Like all of us, come 3pm I was a bag of nerves, shaking like the proverbial defecating dog.
It was horrible wasn't it? What a strange game. We all knew the equation. We had to win and providing we did that, we had to rely on Lincoln not to beat Aldershot. Port Vale were clearly not interested. They'd finished their season last week by winning 7-2. With that in mind they could have just given up a bit more, I thought. We rained in a number of half chances. Mark Byrne did fantastically in creating himself a chance, he tackled one central defender, the ball fell to the other and he tackled himself as well. Everyone held their breath as he bore down on the North Terrace goal, but he placed his shot against the far post. Goodness me. Just score a bloody goal! Unlucky! But score it next time!
Vale had a massive chance soon after, a deflected free kick fell to the head of Louis Dodds just yards out. He headed it over. Terrible defending and a massive let off. Cor dear, we don't need this. Any time the ball went anywhere near our penalty area, people were frantically screaming to get the ball clear. The nerves were unbearable, not helped by an unnamed individual behind me panicking vociferously with increasingly high-pitched tones. To their credit, the defence were outstanding to a man, and didn't let much else through whatsoever. Half time came, and with no news from Sincil Bank, we were still on our way down. However, it looked a matter of time until we'd score, but who knows what was happening at Lincoln.
Half time passed slowly, with the stadium announcer trying to whip up a bit of an atmosphere via a Mexican Wave. Hrmmmm. Different! Within twenty seconds of the whistle, almost poetically, Izale McLeod strolled into the Vale box and was fouled. Obvious penalty, and this was our chance. What a horrible wait it was, McLeod stepped up, the memory of Gillingham and the dinked miss clear in my mind. He smashed it down the middle, and despite the efforts of the visiting keeper's outstretched glove, it was in the back of the net. The ground erupted in joy. Our side of the bargain was on its way to being done. We still needed Aldershot to help us out. The keeper was injured from his save attempt, and replaced by a man with a very strange haircut. Unorthodox hair, unorthodox keeping, he was to keep us out by hook or by crook. Face, arse, hair, anything but the conventional hand based save.
We need to hold on, and we did it with relative ease. Any other game we'd have been nice and relaxed as Vale had little interest in scoring. This game though had a little more riding on it. The panic spread deeper the nearer the ball got to our goal. Fortunately, our players kept their head screwed on and did a fantastic job, to a man.
What's that? A little pocket of the crowd has started cheering. So has another one. And another. News filters quickly. Aldershot have scored a penalty! I refuse to believe it until I see it printed there in front of my eyes on my iPhone. Confirmed! 1-0 Shots! We're staying up. The ground again explodes into rapturous song. The equation is nearly complete! Hang on! TWO NIL!? That's it for Lincoln surely! I can't believe this is happening. Ridiculous! We're actually going to stay up! Argh! This just makes it more tense. We can't concede now!
Chances come and go. Mark Byrne does brilliantly to beat the man in the box. He bears down on goal again, looks to curl it in the far corner and the 'keeper makes a fantastic reflex save to push it wide. Fucking hell. That would have been it! Now we've got to panic some more. Just end it now! This is disgusting.
Three nil Aldershot. What have Lincoln done?! They're on shocking form and it appears to have shown. Two points from the last ten games. Wow! Absolute implosion. It's now down to us to stay firm. Chase everything down. Charlie Taylor came on for ten minutes and chased everything. Just what we needed. One more piece of hell to endure, a lovely ball from a Vale midfielder fell to the striker. I don't know the names. I don't care about the names! Sam Walker, criticised of late, came out quickly and plucked the ball from the attackers' feet. OH MY GOD! Relief. A massive cheer, almost like a goal. 90 minutes are up. How much longer? He's only gone and put six fucking minutes up! WHAT?!
So much panic in the stand. We wanted a second goal, the impatience was so clear. Jesus Christ. Six minutes. I could barely watch. Every gained throw in, every tackle, every misplaced Port Vale pass, every header was cheered like some heroic piece of history. It's got to be over. Just blow the whistle man! Hang on! Fraser's got the ball, the referee's put his whistle to his mouth. We've only done it! Can you believe it? How have we managed this? We've stayed up. By hook or by crook, Barnet Football Club have stayed up.
A brief jump up and down before I was down the stairs and over the barrier to be one of the first onto the pitch. It was bedlam, bodies flying everywhere. I've jumped over and as I've realised where I am and looked up, the first thing I've seen is Giuliano Grazioli on his own. I've changed my course and sprinted towards this ABSOLUTE FUCKING HERO! I hugged him, grabbed his head and told him I loved him before sprinting off and collapsing in a tear-filled heap in the middle of the pitch. The emotion got to me. Players hugged fans, eachother, fans hugged fans, what unbelievable scenes. The footage that already resides on YouTube is an unbelievable watch. You can't stop watching it. Try and spot yourself as you watch it over and over again.
slowly but surely people filtered off the pitch as the celebrations continued. The players re-emerged for a lap of honour, fully deserved for the last seven weeks of unbelievable drama supporting this club. They've pulled a great achievement out of the bag having looked dead and buried. Fantastic.
I had to go back on to lap up a bit more of the occasion. Memories that will live with all in attendance forever. I said a few months ago that I was so disillusioned with this club as we were going down without a fight, without a whimper, and it was all so depressing. What a turnaround. There is no doubt that the initial turn can be attributed to Martin Allen. He instilled belief and battle into a losing, demoralised team. It is a shame that he appears to be a man who loves to start a good job but not finish it. So it was up to a true Barnet legend to do so. And that he did, with the assistance of Lawrie Sanchez this team pulled out some outstanding performances and results and as such, Saturday became one of my favourite ever days supporting Barnet FC.
The celebrations carried on long into the evening. Pure elation for everyone involved. Pure drunkenness was to follow also. For now, I'm not going to worry about next season, I'm just going to continue to revel in this unbelievable day. Comiserations to Lincoln, we've lost a pretty good away day there, but to be honest I'm not going to lose too much sleep over that.
What matters to me is that Barnet stayed up. I fucking love this club."
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