Incredibly, we’ve made it to the final hurdle.  A superb City performance in an electric atmosphere saw the boys beat Palace 2-1 for the second time in 4 days, going through to the Wembley showdown with a 4-2 aggregate score.  It was scintillating, once-in-a-lifetime, tear-jerking stuff, which makes all those dreary 0-0 draws with Nowhere United on a wet Tuesday night in the third division so worthwhile.

Hero of the hour was Lee Trundle, who rewarded the fans’ patience with a superb goal in extra time.  At the time, it always looked certain to go in, probably because of the mass of wishful thinking pushing it goalwards and the hours of pre-match fantasising about just such a fairytale ending.  It was on the television replays that I realised just what a great goal it was - under pressure from defenders, and on legs that, after nearly 2 hours of frantic football, must have been running on the last rush of adrenalin, he curled an absolute peach into the top corner of the net.  The mass euphoria was extraordinary, and almost frightening in its intensity, whilst Michael McIndoe’s sublime free kick minutes later put the icing on the cake and sent the Palace fans streaming towards the exit.

So now it really is The Big One, our beloved little Gary Johnson taking his little team on a charabanc to the big city, there to play for the biggest prize of all.  I think I’ve just had a great idea for a screenplay…