All the Way to Wembley – part three.

With Bitton beaten North End had now made the quarter finals, and got a home draw to boot. Could they continue to write more chapters in the club’s history?


As the hangovers from the day out at Bitton began to fade the morning after the night before, a personal nightmare began for your author. It might only have been February, but in an optimistic moment I allowed myself to get carried away and check the date of the final. Discovering that it was to take place on May 10th confirmed my worst fears, this was the same date as my daughter’s first communion, a date that her atheist dad had no understanding of other than it was very special for her. At the moment, this dilemma could be straight-batted with a ‘well, it’s not going to be a problem really is it?’, but what if...what if they did?

The reward for the hard fought victory at Bitton was, in theory, an easier one – a home tie against a team from one notch lower down the ladder. This simplistic outlook though ignored the strength of the Northern League, from where Marske United hailed.

Due to travelling distances involved, Northern League sides are traditionally less willing to be involved in the national league system, which means that whilst sides at Step 5 around Manchester are battling against tens of sides offering a better standard of football (nominally anyway) North Eastern players drop to this level much quicker meaning that there is, in theory, a better standard of player at a comparative level. And besides, Marske were in the quarter finals of the FA Vase, they were clearly no mugs.

The build up to the game was busy, with club officials speculating how many people might turn up. ‘I reckon we’ll get near four figures’ was the most optimistic of guesses, and it was still a regular North End attendance short of the final figure of 1120. Of that number, Marske brought a sizeable following who took over half the scratting shed and with their ringleader – a bulldog mascot – made a noisy build up to the match.

It wasn’t just the crowd that was up for it either – North End blasted Marske from the kick off, Hodges opening the scoring on just two minutes and Bailey tapping in 10 minutes later. As per their billing though, Marske were a handy side, playmaker Glenn Wesson in particular, and they got one back on 20 minutes, only for Bailey to score for the home side again shortly afterwards.

Jamie Kay’s brilliant diving header with half an hour to go seemed to have sealed a semi-final place but within 2 minutes doubt was back as Skelton scored for the visitors. Only as the clock ticked into the final moments of the game did Glossop fans feel able to celebrate and Sam Hind sealed the game with an injury time goal.

The 2-legged semi finals were said to be drawn the following Monday at 11am. From 10:45 fans of North End, Whitley Bay, Lowestoft and Chalfont St Peter were frantically refreshing their browsers approximately every 20 seconds. The draw finally came online on the FA’s website shortly after midday – we were going to Chalfont!

The large crowd for the Marske game forced the Glossop board into action for the 2nd leg at Surrey Street, and the game was made all ticket. They could have still sold the 1500 capacity three times over. But first, there was a very tricky first leg to take on.

The team travelled down to the Chalfont area on the Friday night. A nice quiet hotel had been found for them in Marlow. However, this nice quiet hotel had occasional club nights, and one such evening was scheduled for 27 March 2009. As the North End group sat in the hotel’s lounge more and more club-goers filed into the bar and Terry Hincks’ face got sterner and sterner as he worried about the distraction. He needn’t have – the players all filed off to bed early as professionals would.

As had been the case at Bitton, as the coach entered Chalfont and headed towards the ground there was astonishment on the team bus as the occupants saw just how many fans had made the trip from Glossop to Buckinghamshire. Fans were spilling out of the The Greyhound pub on the main street and carrying their flags to the ground. At the ground the team were cheered off the bus by a throng including one of North End’s greatest supporters down the years – Steve Baran – right at the centre of the commotion as he often was.

It was down to business now though and the players had to calm themselves and deal with some tough conditions – the pitch was hard and rutted and the wind was blowing, neither of which would help the Hillmen’s style of play. This proved to be the case as the home side stormed into a two goal lead in the first half hour, both from set pieces that were not dealt with in the 6 yard box.

However, towards the end of the half Chalfont seemed to tire, and this allowed Jay Gorton to give Glossop hope by scoring from a corner only for the break to galvanise the home side and score again just after half time from another long throw.

Again though, Chalfont’s energy dropped towards the latter part of the half and on 73 minutes substitute Mark Balfe lifted a ball over the defence for Hodges who used the bounce of the ball to lift it over the keeper and into the net.

They weren’t finished there either as five minutes later another ball over the back line put Tom Bailey through on goal. Bailey was on a hot scoring streak in the league, and confidently held off the desperate defence and slipped the ball under the keeper before disappearing into a sea of supporter arms behind the goal. Amazingly, Hind nearly pinched a win for Glossop when he guided a side-foot volley just the wrong side of the post.

It had been a breathless game, and at times there were moments that it looked as though Glossop might not just lose the game but the whole tie on that afternoon. They showed amazing resilience to come back from the almost-dead, and if you suspected they might need all of that tenacity again come the second leg a week later you’d have been absolutely right. This game was only the start of a titanic encounter.

Next time – the story of that amazing second leg and the North End players’ TWO trips to Wembley stadium.