After surviving the last 5 minutes of 'squeaky-bum-time' in the FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round Wealdstone FC were in the hat for the First Round Proper and we were going to be there with them.
We pledged that we would go anywhere to watch Wealdstone march on to Wembley which is why we were pretty delighted when The Stones avoided an away match in Carlisle!
There is nothing quite like an FA Cup draw... the highs and the lows. The raw emotions of two men picking out balls from a bowl and reading out numbers. Wealdstone were ball number 69 and we had to wait until the penultimate ball to see them drawn out. A home tie - great news! A home tie versus.... Colchester United!
Wow we had really hit the big time now. Colchester United of League One were quite a difference from Shortwood United who we had been watching just three games previous.
Match day four arrived and we were off to Wealdstone. Or were we? A quick trawl through to Wealdstone FC official Twitter page left us feeling nervy about our prospects of seeing the boys in blue and white. There were limited tickets! That wasn't something we had planned.
With no way of getting to the ground until 2pm at the earliest we were in trouble. Until the man of the hour arrived. @samrumens on Twitter agreed to hold tickets for us at the gate so our FA Cup Story would continue for another day!
We arrived at the freebets.co.uk Stadium (extremely catchy title) and found our man Sam and gratefully parted with £15 each in return for the golden ticket to see Wealdstone v Colchester later.
But as we walked around the stadium there was more doubt as to whether we would actually see any football. It had been raining solidly for a couple of days and the pitch was sodden. Due to the very unique way the Wealdstone pitch lies all the water had trickled down into the corner leaving the groundsman with a lot of work to do before the game!
It's lucky the groundsman had watched a lot of
Ground Force on catch up recently and he managed to save the day!
So with nothing else left to spoil the fun Liam and Dave chose their places to watch the game and to pose for a pre-match selfie with a brand new Wealdstone scarf!
The game itself was a belter, nothing less than we have been accustomed to in this years FA Cup. Colchester had an edge about them, something extra that Wealdstone didn't. You could see their superior quality and it paid off when eventually Bonne put the U's ahead.
This silenced the home faithful who had been in full voice beforehand. But they were soon to find their signing voices again as the referee awarded Wealdstone a penalty which veteran forward Jefferson Louis converted.
The boys in blue and white were cheered on by over 2,000 home fans when the unthinkable happened... Wealdstone took the lead thanks to Hudson-Odoi in 38th minute. Surely this wasn't going to happen?! Wealdstone FC of the National League South were beating Colchester United who were three divisions above them.
Now all Wealdstone needed to do was hold on to this lead for another 50 minutes - not long really! But despite valiant defending Wealdstone fell just short of the 50 minute target and succumbed to the Colchester pressure six minutes later.
Two minutes into the second half it went from bad to worse for Wealdstone as Bonne completed his hat-trick and the U's took a 3-2 lead. From then after both teams seemed to forget about defending and the remaining 40 minutes was a enthralling, end-to-end encounter in which Colchester came out 6-2 winners.
So okay it was a heavy loss for Wealdstone but The Stones should be proud. To lead against League One opposition showed great character. The performance and the game itself was a great advert for the FA Cup.
But while Wealdstone's cup run was over ours had just picked up speed. Now we would be following Colchester all the way to the final. Come on you U's!
