Nantwich Town made history in their FA Trophy Semi-Final first leg and, despite the game ending in defeat, manager Phil Parkinson is not ruling out more milestones.
Saturday 12 March 2016 is now written in Nantwich’s history with 2,078 packing themselves into the Weaver Stadium for their Semi-Final first leg clash with FC Halifax Town, smashing the previous best of 1,784 set back in 2008.
However, the majority of those fans headed home disappointed as visiting Halifax saw out a 4-2 victory to build a comfortable lead ahead of the return leg at The Shay.
FC Halifax Town v Nantwich Town
The FA Trophy
Semi-Final second leg
The Shay
3pm, Saturday 19 March
by Ben Baker
That means Nantwich face an uphill struggle this weekend, but Dabbers boss Parkinson is not prepared to throw in the towel.
“I was disappointed not only to lose, but to lose by the score that we did,” he said. “From our point of view, to concede four goals was a real shame and we felt a little unlucky to have done that.
“I’m not saying that Halifax were lucky to have won, far from it. I thought they showed us a lot of respect, put out a strong team and played well.
“But we were disappointed with the goals we conceded and then we showed great character to come back into the tie.
“At 4-1 down we looked dead and buried but we got a second and now they are only leading 2-0 effectively. And at 2-0 you are always wary and then at 2-1 you start to panic, so we are not dead and buried by any means.
“One thing anyone will tell you who has come up against us is that we don’t quit – we keep fighting and fighting and we will do that in the second leg.
“It was great to see so many at The Weaver for the first leg and I thought it was a great occasion. Hopefully we can give them something to celebrate at our place too.”
Despite having one foot on the Wembley Stadium turf already, Halifax manager Jim Harvey will be urging his Shaymen to see the game out.
And one man who is certainly listening is first-leg goalscorer Jordan Burrows who knows anything can happen second time around.
“Let’s not mention it [Wembley] yet as we're not there yet,” he said.
“After next week, once we've taken care of that game, then we can start talking about it, but until then we have to stay level headed.
“There's still 90 minutes to go. It's nice to have a cushion but we have to put the tie to bed first.
"It was a good win, we knew it was going to be difficult there. They were always going to make it hard for us because there is a big carrot dangled at the end of it, to play at Wembley, so it was going to be tough to get the result.
"We scored early on and that settled us down and we built on that to get a good victory in the end."
