The draw for the first round of the FA Cup saw us get York at home, dashing Tim’s hopes that we’d get Hendon away (his next closest game to Wealdstone, who lost to the Met Police, who then lost in turn to Hendon – take notes as I’ll be asking questions later...). However, Tim’s got over that disappointment enough to travel to the game, along with me, Jenny and John Kirkland.
No hitches on the journey this time, and we meet up with Tim’s chum, Andy, to catch the tram to the Fat Cat. Once there, we link up with Kirkland Junior, who’s persuaded Tom that what he needs is another Saturday afternoon at the DVS. Tom’s planning a Sheffield pub crawl, so he picks our brains about where to go and how far apart everything is in terms of walking distance (to which the answer is surprisingly close, in most cases).
I have to leave earlier than usual, as I’m meeting my dad to pick up my match ticket. The timing’s perfect, as Jenny and I get off the train just in time to see my dad and Gordon wandering along from where they’ve parked.
Arriving at the ground, it’s obvious that quite a few York fans have travelled. But then it’s not too far to come, it’s a new ground for them and they can’t have played us for a good ten years. The last time I saw York play, it was at Bootham (then KitKat, now back to Bootham) Crescent against Darlo, the day John Batchelor took over the club. He paraded with his scarf and his grandiose plans, and those who’d seen George Reynolds do exactly the same at Feethams began to get an idea of how well all that was going to end...
It soon becomes apparent that a lot of the Rotherham fans have looked at the opposition and are expecting this to be a stroll against a non-league team. Of course, York aren’t looking at it that way, just as Rotherham would go into a tie against a team from a higher division looking to take a scalp. We make a decent start, having a couple of chances with ex-Darlo keeper Michael Ingham looking a bit flappy, though he does make one very good save when he scoops out a shot from Alfie that looks like a certain goal. When nothing goes in and York start making inroads on our goal (they really should score, but James Meredith seems determined to walk the ball into the net, which enables us to clear the danger), people start getting restless. ‘Come on, Rotherham,’ shouts someone behind me, ‘this lot are a pub team.’ There’s no need to go into how disrespectful this is to a) York and b) the Conference as a whole, but that attitude sums up the inflated expectations we (and probably the fans of a few other teams towards the top of our division) have somehow acquired. It also explains the boos at half-time.
In the first half, there’s been one of those irritating old boys sitting right behind me who loves to praise the opposition and criticise us, but he seems to have disappeared by the time the second half kicks off. Maybe he’s seen enough; he doesn’t miss much, because the second half is pretty much exactly the same as the first. York threaten on a couple of occasions, but we could probably play all night and neither team would score. For once, Ronnie doesn’t make any substitutions, possibly with one eye on Tuesday night’s game against Huddersfield in the JPT in mind, which only enrages an already riled home crowd even more. At the final whistle, there are even more boos. Some fans hang behind to applaud the York team off the pitch. It’s a gesture that might be more understandable if they’d beaten us, but it seems to be more about sending a message to Ronnie and the team than actually praising the opposition performance.
Both Jenny and Tim are staying in Rotherham for the weekend, so it’s just John and I who head for the Sheffield Tap, with Chris in tow. It’s nice and quiet when we arrive, as we’ve been the only club playing in Sheffield today. Chris travels with us as far as Chesterfield, rather than hang round Sheffield station when all the Leicester fans get back from Barnsley. However, it seems most of them have been put on a football special (see, they do still exist...) and we’re through Derby before the Pompey fans make it down to the station after their televised game. It’s a reflective journey back, but John is strangely confident about our chances in the replay. We’ll see...
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