Saturday’s F.A Cup clash with New Salamis, personally brought back so many vivid memories of this famous history laden competition, a history and heritage that stretched back in time to 1871, when the game’s very first superstars ‘The Wanderers’ won the very first Cup Final at The Oval, seeing off the Royal Engineers.
As a wide eyed seven year old football mad kid, I remember being glued to an old black and white television back in May 1954, when my very first football hero Len Millard ‘lifted’ the cup at Wembley as the ‘Team of the Century’ West Bromwich Albion beat Preston North End 3-2, and my personal football path was forever mapped out, becoming a lifelong ‘Throstle’ supporting my Albion heroes from that very historic day forward, so long ago.
Every F.A Cup day, is the same for me, and on Saturday watching and ‘snapping’ Grays as they took on the North Londoners at this very Preliminary stage of the competition, was almost surreal, because of what the cup means to me as a football fan. Practically everything actually, and the realisation that the ‘Blues’ were stepping out once again on the ‘Wembley path’ was very exciting. That this was that first step in what I still consider to be greatest journey in football, and we the ‘Blues’ of Grays, were preparing the ‘table’ for the greats of the game, the Manchester City’s, United’s. Tottenham’s, Arsenal’s and the like, to embrace and conquer further on down the line, was quite extraordinarily surreal, and memories of a packed ‘Old Rec’ back in 1959, 9,500 fans crammed into the old ground that day for the fourth Qualifying round against Chelmsford City, came flooding back.
The fact that we would savour a dramatic last ditch equaliser, in virtually the last throes of a hugely competitive, if in many ways a disappointing cup tie, that would keep ‘Blues’ F.A Cup dreams alive made the occasion perhaps even more special, added to the drama, and I was thinking “What a shame that only 130 hardy souls were there to witness the event.” Perhaps they were the losers!
At half-time, after forty five minutes of pretty much fruitless effort, with the game still goal-less and seemingly going nowhere, P.A announcer Rob Seaman walked over to me, and said “A good game this Lol.” I couldn’t disagree with him at all. It had been a good game, with plenty of good football played with unfortunately no cutting edge.
“Yep, it is Rob” I replied, “Unfortunately missing just one vital ingredient pal….Someone who can put the ball into the back of the net.” I don’t think I was speaking out of turn. The truth was neither side had come close, apart from a disallowed effort by Charlie Stimson, which had actually been flagged for offside long before Charlie put the ball into the net.
Neither side had that ‘special’ someone, who could turn all that honest endeavour into the match winning moment that the game so desperately needed until that was, Micah Jackson’s simply sublime effort, mid-way through the second half, whistled past Danny Sambridge and nestled sweetly into the left hand corner of his net to give the visitors the lead. Picking the ball out of his net was perhaps the only thing Danny had to do all afternoon! For many Grays fans, the match was lost, and as one ‘wag’ standing behind me uttered, “That’s it then, that’s the Cup gone for another season, Grays haven’t got anyone who can score one goal, let alone two!”
Unfortunately, at that stage I just couldn’t disagree, but in fairness it wasn’t for the want of trying, with skipper Lewis Clark leading from the front as always himself going close, and ‘Salamis’ keeper Rueben Rabstein, in quite inspired form with two wonderful last ditch saves to keep his ‘teetering’ side in the game. With time ebbing away, Grays ‘boss’ Mark Stimson, played what I thought was his trump card, Troy Osei-Bobie, having signed on the ‘dotted line’ before the game, now entering the fray, and certainly bringing fresh energy to the Grays cause, ‘Blues’ now throwing everything they had left in the tank in what still seemed a pretty vain effort to save the tie, the game still needing someone special, to do something ‘special’, and then just like superman, step forward ‘Man of the Match’ Callum Leahy, who had been immense all afternoon alongside skipper Clark at the heart of the ‘Blues’ defence, and the big man now powered forward, and with one last energy sapping effort put his body into the packed penalty area and thundered a header into the net to take the tie to a replay at Harringay. I suppose it was a simple case of ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’.
It was in fairness, no more that Grays deserved, with the tie and a place in the next round of the competition, still very much up for grabs, let’s hope it is the Blues of Grays Athletic that will do the grabbing.
An absorbing classic, it certainly wasn’t, a breathless finish, not really, but if you look at the competitions thrilling history, there have been many sweet moments in F.A Cup at all levels, and for 130 plus Grays fans at Chadfields yesterday, this was indeed the sweetest finish, we could have wished for and I for one, am still in the cup, on the road to Wembley! Cheers Callum!

REPLAY TO BE PLAYED WEDNESDAY 23rd AUGUST - KO 7:45PM