Hereford 1-3 Hornchurch

[and1inthetree]

Couldn’t sleep last night due to nerves. Think drifted off at 1.30, woke up 4.30 absolutely buzzing.

I’ve done a couple of post match posts during this campaign but I am still absolutely euphoric after the fantastic team performance today. I don’t know where to start.

felt like we were playing against 12 men in the first half and couldn’t settle. It was a scrappy goal to concede and they nearly got a second. Micky parcell started to stamp his authority on the game and the longer the match went on, the more we came into it. Their number 6 was an absolute unit btw.

second half we shifted to behind the goal to try and get some joined up support as felt very spread out. And then the team just subtly shifted through the gears. Brilliant subs and use of our whole talented squad and my goodness. Oh my shattered nerves etc. To see your team play at Wembley is one thing. To see them score is another. To win the bloody thing. (Like we knew they effing would) is going to take some time to sink in for me.  I see talks of a book and film etc. But would love to somehow get a flavour of what the management team said to the players at half time, what the players said. They came out and absolutely owned the hallowed turf.

hard luck to Hereford who had a great support, some of who stayed behind to applaud their team at the end, I’m sure we’d have done the same.

happy birthday to Miss afc Hornchurch and fisherman’s friends mum. 

thank you Hornchurch for today. I’ll not forget this for as long as I live. 
 

football. Bloody hell

[aka PeteBeatz]

1966 can be put to rest now. It’s now Hornchurch 2021?????? The best football day of my life. Well done to everyone at the club and of course our great supporters.

[Burdy]

Jean and myself could not travel to see the match so we settled down and watched it on BTSports after the first goal I thought we were going to be runners up but how wrong I was. We held our own and come the second half Urchins stepped up several gears the lads played out of their skins it was like living in a dream. We equalised then it happened we went 2  1. Up heart in mouth as we keep the lead. where the ref got 6 mins added on I don't know but low and behold we got the third goal and seven minutes past the 90 final whistle blew we had won. I admit I had tears in my eyes it took time for it to sink in. Well done Urchins what a day so proud to support such a team. Bring on the open topped bus. Sorry for the ramblings of proud senior citizen I will have a lay down now.

[urchinman1961]

Now the heads clear had a peek at Herefords take on it and its along the lines of the 2 managers having a spat at full time and fans running on the pitch,up the Chins

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

I still don’t have the words, but never mind we have plenty of eloquent wordsmiths on here regardless..

this day will literally be remembered forever. 
 

all I can say is simply thank you for every single person who even made this a possibility.... dreamland. 

[Miss.A.F.C.Hornchurch]

Absolutely amazing.

Head not with it, left my voice at Wembley.

Feel exhausted today but so worth it.

I'm hearing sour grapes of the finest from Hereford.... deary me, a club that wanted 20 thousand tickets couldn't even sell 3 thousand.

Small club near Newport County!!

 

UP THE URCHINS!!!

[obis]

30 minutes ago, Miss.A.F.C.Hornchurch said:

Absolutely amazing.

Head not with it, left my voice at Wembley.

Feel exhausted today but so worth it.

I'm hearing sour grapes of the finest from Hereford.... deary me, a club that wanted 20 thousand tickets couldn't even sell 3 thousand.

Small club near Newport County!!

 

UP THE URCHINS!!!

What did those from Hereford say? We were deserved winners!

[Wivenhoe Urchin]

We pulled it off on the big stage!

Massive congrats to the club, feeling so pleased and proud. To win the FA Trophy as a current Isthmian league club is sensational and would love to see an open top bus through Havering!

[and1inthetree]

1 hour ago, Miss.A.F.C.Hornchurch said:

Absolutely amazing.

Head not with it, left my voice at Wembley.

Feel exhausted today but so worth it.

I'm hearing sour grapes of the finest from Hereford.... deary me, a club that wanted 20 thousand tickets couldn't even sell 3 thousand.

Small club near Newport County!!

 

UP THE URCHINS!!!

Not seen sour grapes apart from immediate and understandable reaction from their manager post match having been out thought by Stimson.

their forum has a thread about “well done to the pub team from Hornchurch” and my favourite response to it is from a bloke who simply said “some fecking pub”. Most of the comments are either criticisms of their managers strategy or simply conceding that the best team won. 

i am still in stunned disbelief after reading the NLP. It wasn’t a dream.

when is the club next open for photo opportunities with the trophy? Or do we save that for first game / pre-season? When can we purchase 21-22 supporters association and 21-22 season tickets? We need to ride this wave into next season and aim for promotion. Otherwise am concerned some of this amazing and capable team will perhaps understandably seek further glory in divisions above. 
 

[Miss.A.F.C.Hornchurch]

It's on their forum

Laughable really!

[Hasbeen]

In fairness most of the Hereford supporters we spoke to after the game were complimentary about our win but guess there will always be some throwing the toys out of the pram.

As for the amazing day yesterday words fail me. Everyone associated with the Club deserve to feel especially proud of themselves. Yesterday was justification for all their hard work and efforts.

Special praise must go to the players, management, and coaching staff.

I attended with ex-players from the 80s and we all agreed the passion, desire, and effort of each Hornchurch player on that pitch puts a lot of the Premiership prima donnas to shame and something we all admired.

 

Congratulations to all at AFC Hornchurch.

 

PS I do get the impression that some fans of Romford are not that happy about our win ?

 

 

[aka PeteBeatz]

I spoke to some Hereford supporters leaving Wembley they were very dignified and complementary.  

[The Hatted Urchin]

Ran into loads of Hereford fans last night in and around Wembley and they were all pretty gracious I have to say. 

Great result and what a day. Will never forget it.

[cup of tea]

Any minute now I'm going to wake up away at Margate on a Tuesday night in January suffering from Hypothermia!! Made it back to not so sunny Gloucestershire (a mere walk in the park compared to the previous poster!) tired but wouldn't have missed this for the world.

What an amazing day, words fail me (well not really!). Still can't believe that happened. A lot of people need to take credit for this, not least the players but also to Alex, Colin, Tony, Ken, Mark Stimpson, all the staff, little Tel (who apparently had his own fan club with a flag) Jordan, and all the volunteers including birthday girl. Just a proud moment that will be forever embedded in Urchin history. For the people who remember the struggles that we've had at the club in recent years, this is just staggering.

As for the game, think Hereford certainly had the better of it first half (not by a great amount though) but second half, we just turned it on, especially when the subs came on. Absolutely fantastic performances all around. 

The Hereford fans - When we played there a few seasons ago, they seemed like a nice bunch of fans to me, certainly the ones we met in the pub afterwards (might be the alcohol though). You're always going to get tw*ts on social media unfortunately

The reaction from the players back at the clubhouse were that they were talking about getting promoted next season (having just won the biggest prize in non-league football) - shows you the mentality of the squad of players we've got now - staggering.

Well done to all

Edited May 23, 2021 by cup of tea

[Jago]

An utterly fantastic day.  Actually the win over Notts County was the big one for me - as it was SO unexpected and it got us to Wembley - but I'm still pinching myself after yesterday's performance.  The culmination of a huge amount of work by the team, the management, and all behind the scenes. Thoroughly deserved: I'm so happy for everyone, especially Colin and Ken.

I genuinely never thought I'd live to see this day.  And I'm quite old.

Let's hope we can keep the squad together and kick-on next season.  And keep a goodly number of those new (or returning) fans.  I'm really quite confident on both of these... why wouldn't you want to stay involved?

Finally - just on the Hereford fans - yes there have been a couple of negative comments, but as far as I can see they have been overwhelmingly supportive, both on-line and in person after the match.  It's easy to find specific cases of sour grapes (or "TOWIE" comments), but that doesn't make it a consensus - very far from it.

Anyway - back to the football - UUUURRRRRRCHIIIIIIINS !!!

See you all next season - at the home of the FA TROPHY WINNERS - can you believe it?

 

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Jago

[cup of tea]

7 minutes ago, Jago said:

An utterly fantastic day.  Actually the win over Notts County was the big one for me - as it was SO unexpected and it got us to Wembley - but I'm still pinching myself after yesterday's performance.  The culmination of a huge amount of work by the team, the management, and all behind the scenes. Thoroughly deserved: I'm so happy for everyone, especially Colin and Ken.

I genuinely never thought I'd live to see this day.  And I'm quite old.

Let's hope we can keep the squad together and kick-on next season.  And keep a goodly number of those new (or returning) fans.  I'm really quite confident on both of these... why wouldn't you want to stay involved?

Finally - just on the Hereford fans - yes there have been a couple of negative comments, but as far as I can see they have been overwhelmingly supportive, both on-line and in person after the match.  It's easy to find specific cases of sour grapes (or "TOWIE" comments), but that doesn't make it a consensus - very far from it.

Anyway - back to the football - UUUURRRRRRCHIIIIIIINS !!!

See you all next season - at the home of the FA TROPHY WINNERS - can you believe it?

 

 

Spot on Jago, the Notts County result was the big one.

[kimbles left foot]

Wow. Echo what has already been said. Everything single player was unbelievable...not just for this game but the games leading up to the final too. Throughout this whole covid saga you guys have got us through it. Never did I think when we went 1.0 down Vs bowers did I think we'd end up winning the whole thing!

Really looking forward to what the new season brings... hopefully we can ride on the crest of this wave keeping all the new fans and keeping this postive momentum going. Thank you everyone involved

[and1inthetree]

Agree with jago re: notts county. I was boring anyone who was still listening to me pre match that I thought that was our cup final and was just praying that the team would do themselves proud and put in a credible performance. To go all the way to Wembley having been behind in so many games? 
tip for future opposition. Don’t score against Hornchurch, it just irritates us 

kimble - your firm were responsible for the lil tel flag. Any chance you could post a pic on here mate?

still buzzing. Glad to hear players have hunger for future success with this club. 
I love this club and all who sail within it.  Well done all. How many scarves did we sell? I cannot believe how many I saw.
aaaaaarrgh!!! (I just tried that out loud and no sound came out as my vocal chords are with miss AFC’s left at HA9.)

anyway. Can I direct debit season ticket etc.  Live away but pledge lifelong season ticket as a thank you to the club. Wife and kids aware they are now in positions 2-4 in terms of life moments.

 

 

[PONY TAILED URCHIN]

wow what a fantastic day out that was.  Still sinking in that we went to Wembley and we won the FA Trophy.  It's such an amazing feeling to see a team that when I started coming was clawing it's way back from almost non existence to become a team that is written in to history books as a winning side at the home of football.   

It has been an incredible journey this season in the Trophy watching game after game and as the team took one game at a time I was doing likewise but once we won at Nott's a was not so sure we could win on the day at Wembley and after that first half was not so sure we would see the dream become reality.  Everything seemed to go Hereford's way from ref not giving us a penalty to giving them freekicks and our lads yellow cards

I have to say after 60 min I was getting anxious, but with Mark in charge I also know he has an ability to read a game and make bold subs at key moments which he did by bringing on Ruff and Dickson which changed the game completely.

We even had some excellent showboating in the build up to Nash's winner on the touchline and the never give up mentality created the third goal as Brown took it all the way to score and not hide in the corner flag.

Well done to Mark and his team all of the players and everyone involved with the club past and present for all their hard work that has gone into the club for making this a wonderful day to remember.  

[Fisherman's Friend]

Just watched the extended highlights on BT, probably the 10th time i have watched some form of highlights now, still getting goosebumps watching it. Well done to all involved you have made a lot of people very happy. Many men questioning where this day fell vs wedding or birth of children. This pre season friendlies cant come quick enough to ensure the club makes the most of this publicity and good will. Up the Urchins.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Fisherman's Friend