Season 2001-02

*POLSKA HALL OF FAME*

Mark Whait describes the day:

"This was a much harder match pressure wise than the semi, simply because everyone expected us to win. Even to the neutrals, those that don't know anything about us, you are always expected to beat your reserves no matter what. It was that pressure that kept me awake for weeks on end before the final, and as the game got closer I became unable to relax. I daren't think the obvious - that we were going to win because we were playing our reserves, but being a betting man I knew our chances would realistically be something like 2/5, with the ressies probably something like 9/1. The biggest problem of all was that I knew one of our players would miss out completely, and that made me feel bad. I knew nothing could be left to chance, so I went over and over the team again and again. There were problems. Firstly, Dean Hall had been shocking against The Charny. Could I risk playing him in case he had a similar game? Or should I put Andy Zarzycki in goal instead? Andy was also on thin ice because of his late show against The Charny. Then there was Adam Cornish. Adam was in great form, but could I risk him not knowing who the reserves were going to play upfront? The wind ups had been going on for weeks. We had basically bullied Rys Procinski into telling us who was going to play, and urged him to play Paul Moulding upfront. I think most of us felt that whilst Paul was one of the cleverest strikers around, his pace was somewhat missing and I think most of us fancied it with him at the back. I'm still convinced that we got inside Rys's head to the extent that he didn't start with Mouldy in the end because we had told him how much we would have loved it had he done so. We had a light training session 3 nights before the final which went well, but I was then asked to phone round those players that would be sub. No-one wanted this to be announced on the Sunday morning - everyone quite rightly wanted some advance warning. I rang round all the players on Friday night. Adam Cornish was the hardest to do as I told him he wasn't in the 11 but should nevertheless get on the pitch at some stage. I also told Sean his brother Paul would be sub. I had been amazed at the amount of phone calls I had been getting at work all week from people that never normally bother contacting me in the week! I did an interview for The Sporting Blue which covered the occasion very well. On the day, I got suited and booted and arrived at Holmes Park very early, but was unprepared for the amount of work to be done! The officials wanted all the surnames of the players compared to what shirt number they were wearing, and there were so many interruptions! We had to do a walk out of the tunnel and shake hands with the opposition, but we just wanted to get on with it.I then had to give the league the subs names in alphabetical order, which I later was incorrectly told that the subs were named in order that they would be used - meaning that Andy Zarzycki missed out, which I was pretty pig sick about. Onto tactics - I wanted our Steve to man mark Jeff Boulton, and Stu Matthews to man mark Simon Glover. I had these 2 down as the danger men - fortunately, they had the same idea with Steve and Jeff - and the two cancelled each other out. We got changed and they had some Rocky music blaring out to motivate them. I thought about music, but decided that the fact we could hear theirs would be motivation enough. Their other danger man was apparently Phil Pearce who played upfront with a strong reputation - but he wasn't a forward by trade, and Chris Lewis marked him out of the game - I felt this was the first gaffe the reserves made - they should have put Mouldy upfront and left Pearce in midfield. After kick off, we went 1-0 up on just 5 minutes after Rod Ashton scored an own goal, which no-one seemed to know much about, but it took the pressure off us straight away. They had some good early chances which Dean saved magnificently well - I had decided to go with Dean as at the end of the day he had seen us through the semi - there was no point changing now. The ressies actually put us under a lot of pressure, but in the last 10 minutes of the first half we actually passed the ball around well - half time: 1-0. Mouldy came on for them for the second half, and they went for it - putting us under a lot of pressure, but again Dean pulled off some blinding saves. Then came a flashpoint as Simon Glover got a straight red card for lashing out at Chris Lewis - and with the reserves down to 10 men we suddenly found things opening up. Eventually, Butch made it 2-0 and I was finally able to relax - I knew that they wouldn't come back at us from that, so it left me in the enviable position of pretty much knowing we were going to win a cup final with about 25 minutes left. I was able to bring Paul O'Callaghan on for Ash - who had been ineffective - mind you, he had got married the night before - and Paul made it 3-0. Then Rys brought himself on - another strange decision I thought seeing as you are a centre half and 3-0 down, but then managed to get himself sent off after retaliating at Colt who had fouled him. Our Steve was lucky not to get a red as well as he went steaming into Rys, and the game actually became very bad tempered. Worst decision of the day came when Stu Matthews got through and rolled a shot towards the empty net, only for the ref to blow - early as it turned out - for full time before the ball trickled over the line. I hope the ref is punished for that ridiculous piece of refereeing in another life. So we had won silverware for the first time since 1989 - it had been a long, tiring process, but we were delighted, and the team spirit shone through on the day.