As a footballer, when you look back at your career once you’ve hung your boots up, there’s always two memorable occasions. The first highlight will always be when you sign your first professional contract, and the other is when you have that one ‘game-of-your-life’ scenario. It’s safe to say that the latter would certainly apply to Saturday, after all, it doesn’t come much bigger than playing the European Cup finalists on their own turf, and coming away with a result.
It is one of those days which I’ll remember for the rest of my life, and I’m more than happy to share it with you.
We were picked up on the team coach at 10.30am on Saturday morning and you could seeing everyone was psyched up even at that point – so much so Grand Theft Auto had to be put on hold through fear of an aggression overspill on Macca’s part!
We got to Stamford Bridge at around 11.45am where we were dropped off and ushered into the Copthorne hotel at the ground. Here’s where we had our pre-match brief and meal, although I’d have much rather had it at Marco Pierre White’s place over the road so I could have a nosey around and add a few dishes to my culinary repertoire – or maybe show Marco a thing or two about stuffing peppers!
Then at 1.20pm we were walked round to the player’s entrance and as people were hanging around outside, the magnitude of the occasion began to simmer through. As we entered the changing rooms it became quite apparent the difference in facilities, after all, last time I looked at Roots Hall I didn’t see any Molton Brown products in the shower room (and yes I did see Mildy try to unscrew some from the wall!).
Not only that, each of us had our own locker to put our stuff in, but then any Club who has Lee ‘ASBO’ Sawyer on their books needs these out of necessity more than anything else!
It’s quite a strange set-up from the changing rooms to the tunnel, as you are taken down some steps, and then up some more to pitchside, and it is only when you hit that top step that you can see the huge stand facing you, and just how grand the stadium is. What also amazed me was the fact there was around 4,000 Blues supporters already there and we received a warmer welcome than when the Chelsea players came out, which was fantastic.
By looking over at the Chelsea team warming up you could see how professional they were, they barely looked over at anything we were doing, and were in ‘game mode’ at that stage (although I must add that despite the result they were fantastic to us afterwards).
So then we came in and had the usual team talk from the gaffer, as well as a surprise visit from the Chairman, who stirred us up with another Al Pacino style speech from Any Given Sunday. Taking this on board we just wanted to get out there, and when the buzzer went (as apposed to Parms ringing a bell in the corridor at Roots Hall ha ha) we made our way back out to the tunnel.
It’s quite a surreal feeling lining up next to eleven International footballers but it had a good effect on the lads. You realise that this is your one chance to compete at this level and that they’ll be no tougher battle in your football career, and as you walk out in front of 42,000 screaming supporters it really does create a feeling I couldn’t do it justice by trying to describe.
At this point you just want the game to start because when it does, as weird as it is to say it, it just becomes a normal game where your sole focus is on the ball and the things going on around you.
For the first twenty minutes we were well and truly on the back foot, but we expected this, after all we were at the home of Chelsea and knew they’d start aggressively out of the blocks. I thought that our defending from the off though was superb and far better than in recent times, with no one shirking anything.
Then of course they scored, which because it came from a set piece was disappointing. It’s a lot easier to take if Lampard had smacked a 40 yard belter in the top corner but when it is a free header it is annoying, although if you look at their whole team’s movement from corners you can understand why he seemingly had so much space in the end. It was a shame as we’d just started to play our way into the game, and we just had to make sure our heads didn’t drop otherwise the game could have been over by half-time.
But we didn’t and I hope you could see how much playing in this team, with these people, means to us as we continued to battle and chase for everything to ensure we were still in the tie. Not one person’s head dropped and everyone still wanted the ball which is a great sign of a united team.
We knew during half time that it wasn’t the end of the world and that we were still in with a chance as long as we limited their opportunities. We managed to do this as I don’t think they had a clear chance until ‘that’ effort in the last minute, which I’ll come to in a bit.
I appreciate that some of the football we played in the second half wasn’t always pretty but we continued to battle and create, and ultimately stick to the game plan.
And then it happened.
Johnny Herd’s throw in came in, skimmed off Carvalho and Clarkey was there to nod it in the corner. To be honest I still can’t really remember what happened next as pandemonium took over! All I remember was looking at the scoreboard, seeing the score-line and thinking ‘what the heck have we just done!’
However, we knew that this would have upset Chelsea, and like all top teams they keep at you until the last minute, none more so than if you’ve just equalised in the last minute against them, and when you have four minutes of injury time to contend with, you know there’s time for one last chance in the game.
Obviously this chance went their way, with Di Santo’s header from about four yards producing one of the best saves I have ever seen in my life by Steve Mildenhall. Anyone who knows Mildy knows just how good a keeper he is, but that save just highlighted to everyone else what he has got in his locker. Not only did he get a hand to it, but once he did he palmed it out to a safe area of play, which is evidently as hard as getting to the ball in the first place.
Make no bones about it Steve deserves just as much credit as Clarkey for Saturday’s result.
Then as the final whistle went, and we made our way down to the supporters who had travelled, it was as if we’d won a cup final, and it ultimately proves what you can achieve when Southend literally is united. We are a powerful and unbreakable unit when we are all singing together and this not only involves the players, management and staff at the Club, but every single supporter out there.
I know I harp on about how good our support is, but everyone who travelled to the Bridge was absolutely immense and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that 6,000 voices did make a difference on the pitch, and added to the motivation of the boys.
Afterwards, the gaffer was obviously delighted with the result and told us to enjoy the moment, but not to lose our focus especially with the Crewe game this Saturday coming up.
We all acknowledge how important Saturday’s performance was for the Club, and also, how important it is for everyone at the Club to take it in, but believe you me, it means nothing if we don’t get a result against Crewe.
We’ve shown the level we can compete to and we’ll forget about the replay until next week now, and concentrate on showing this commitment and desire at this weekend’s game.
We know that the League is our bread and butter, and ultimately what we get judged on come May time, and in essence this is where the pressure is on us, not at places like Stamford Bridge because we weren’t expected to get a result there. Most of this pressure is generated by ourselves because we know where we should be and where we have to be at the end of the season. If we’re not in the play-offs after 46 games we know we’ve failed this season, no matter what our Cup result says.
I’d like to make another special mention for the supporters who travelled, and who will no doubt be cheering us on again next Wednesday. You are fantastic ambassadors for this Club and we are lucky to have you and on behalf of all the lads I’d like to say a massive thank you for this.
Finally, and I know this is the real reason if you’ve read this far down the column; it’s my first Dish of 2009:
‘Hand-made meatballs (or hand bought if you don’t fancy doing them yourselves) with egg-noodles and rocket and parmesan salad’
Ohh, and for those of you wondering whether John Terry and me had discussions about the dish of the week, we did talk about my culinary delights but ended up falling out – he said optimum cous-cous production took three minutes whilst I said it was four minutes just to let it absorb the water thoroughly – amateur hey!
Thanks for everything and see you soon,
