FA historian and superfan, David Barber, took his match tally up to 177 for the season despite problems on the train...
All of my five games at the weekend were Finals – with wins for FC Unity, AFC, North Shields, AFC Hammersmith Town and SE Tigers.
So North Shields have now played in two Wembley Finals and won both 2-1. I didn’t see them beat Sutton United in The FA Amateur Cup Final of 1969. I was a Crystal Palace fan in those days and went up to Preston on the coach to see us get the 0-0 draw that took us up to the top flight.
West End League Sportsmanship Shield was up for grabs this weekend
On Saturday there were engineering works on the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines that closed Wembley Park station – but there was no problem travelling on the Bakerloo line from Paddington to Wembley Central.
I came back after the game from Wembley Stadium station on the Chiltern overground line and there were about a thousand people on the platform.
You can imagine the reaction when the PA announcer told us the train had TWO carriages!
It was my 25th FA Vase Final and for me the best so far has been Wimborne Town v Guiseley in 1992. Wembley’s first Dorset winners went behind to an early goal and then triumphed 5-3 in a classic.
Glossop North End 1-2 North Shields
There was no score at half-time on Saturday but Glossop North End, losing Finalists six years ago, took the lead and for a while I thought they were going to keep it.
Then Gareth Bainbridge produced the goods again, notching his 17th goal of this Vase campaign to bring Shields level, and I had a feeling they would win after that.
The last time I saw Shields was just over a year ago when their home Northern League Division Two fixture with West Allotment Celtic opened the League’s ‘Easter Ground Hop’. They had a crowd of over 1,300 that day and won 3-1.
Appropriately, within four days of the General Election, I was watching a team called ‘Politics’ play in the West End League’s Whiteley Bequest Cup Final at Hanwell on Sunday morning.
Hammersmith Town (claret and blue) v Politics
They played reasonably well, creating plenty of chances, but went down 6-2 to AFC Hammersmith Town. I don’t know if they lost their deposit.
About 40 saw that one from the stand but I only counted seven people, myself included, at the afternoon match – the Sportsmanship Shield Final between SE Tigers and Bricklayers.
Tigers were 2-1 up at the break, the second goal a penalty, but were completely on the defensive after that.
‘Layers could have scored five or six in the second half but then had the shock of conceding again to a breakaway effort in added time.
That’s 177 games this season – no, I’m not going to make 200 – and 6,837 in total. I think I have four games this week.
You can follow The Barber's adventures on Twitter @thebarberfan
