Читать книгу Taking le Tiss онлайн

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He was a bit of a panic buy. Although he was a decent player, he wasn’t what we then needed. He was a good footballer with a nice touch but lacked a bit of pace. His best position was in the hole just behind the front two, but the only way he would fit in was if they got rid of me or Rod, so he ended up playing out of position. Having got past Swindon we really should have gone on to Wembley because we were drawn at home to Oldham in the quarter-final. We were 2-1 up going into stoppage time at The Dell but somehow referee Roger Milford found four minutes of injury-time, even though neither physio had been on the field.

Oldham equalized and we knew we had no chance in the replay because they played on a plastic pitch. We hated that surface and were beaten before we even got on the coach. We were in completely the wrong frame of mind which was highlighted when we had the chance to equalize at 1-0 down. The ball was played across the box and it was crying out for Paul Rideout to hurl his head at it. But he held back and Chris Nicholl had a right go at him. Paul said, ‘You must be joking, I’m not diving on that stuff.’ Chris had a face like thunder. I honestly thought I was going to see him punch a player for the second time. There was steam coming out of his ears which at least took the pressure off the rest of us because we were all crap. That plastic pitch gave Oldham a huge advantage and they beat West Ham by six in the semi-final and went on to lose to Forest at Wembley, on grass. It was a hard final to watch because we knew it should have been us in it.