The day that the muddy waters that stream through the Second Division cleared. In fact so clear that there’s a possibility of a Lincoln spring being unveiled.
I’ll go for this one in chronological order. Inside the first five minutes rumours sweep the very expensive away terrace(£13) that Wycombe had taken the lead at Maine Road. The first rule of such days is don’t believe anything you hear until you can confirm it.
Almost simultaneously Lincoln get a chance and a cross is headed in from three yards out. I remember screaming “offside” at the referee but I’m not 100% sure it was. Fortunately the Assistant Referee or useless prick as I had called him only two nano seconds previously agreed with my decision and we were still all square. Just.
About five minutes later a reliable source confirms the Man City scoreline. So a chance of Wycombe stealing a point is on the cards. Another five minutes later it’s 2 - 0 Wycombe and we search for confirmation of this one. Yes it is true.
Half time arrives no goal in this one and a 2 - 1 scoreline at Maine Road. Can Wycombe hold on? I doubt it. We didn’t get the Preston score so I tried to forget the fact that they were playing.
The second half was really tense and the notable silence from Maine Road made merely served to up the tension another notch. That is until with twelve minutes remaining he only went and did it again.
Latching onto an Andy Rammell through ball, he broke through the Lincoln back line, sat the keeper on his arse, dribbled round him, slotted into an unguarded net and ran towards his adoring people.
Boooooooooooom! Pandemonium.
Super Darren Wrack had delivered again.
I honestly can’t think of a more passionate celebration. I can rarely remember what I’m thinking when we score but this was at a different level. Now when you see people going mental as the Pope touches them and you don’t understand what the fuss is about then you won’t really follow the next bit. It was like that. A maul of grown men, myself included began to race into the area of the terrace/pitch where three or four green shirts were celebrating.
A packed away terrace went absolutely mental. A small child stood in my way or otherwise I’d have been one of the first there. A loss of acceleration and a quick side-step had cost me a vital half second and I had to make do with trying to get a touch of our goalscoring hero.
There were others who arrived later than me who didn’t even get a sight let alone a sniff of those sweaty green shirts but it didn’t matter.
We'd done the hard bit, now all we had to do was hold on for twelve minutes. Twelve very long minutes. In the twelfth and final minute the reserve official raised the overtime card. I never knew they did on that long! It had a six on it but for all the pressure I felt it could have said Tuesday.
Despite the huge amount of extra time we made it through to the final whistle unscathed and now it was time for mobile phones and even more mobile radios to break our hearts.
Wycombe couldn’t hold on could they? And what did Millwall have to gain from beating Preston?
And than we knew.
Unbelievably, Wycombe had held on for the result of the day and Millwall repaid their Auto Windshield debt by coming back from 2 - 0 down with six minutes to go to snatch a point.
It wasn’t relief and it wasn’t joyous celebrations, it was just kind of strange. Perhaps because as Walsall fans we’ve been raised to expect the worst, I don’t know, but there was a pungent aroma of success in the air. Suddenly two points are all we require from our final three games and should City and North End fail to win any of their final two fixtures then we have already done enough.
"Only two more points” someone said to me. What’s all this “only” I replied.
As always, the pessimist but the ride home was a mighty nice one.