As we build up towards Saturday's Trophy final re-play on the website, we're going back through the memories of players, fans and officials.

The 2011 Trophy final replay starts at 3pm on Saturday -- in the meantime, why not contribute to next season's Boost the Budget? Follow this link; https://fundraising.darlingtonfcsupportersgroup.org/pitches/boost-the-budget-20-21

Andrew Matthews - “I’ve never screamed like that before or since.”

Unlike many people, I was very optimistic after our semi final win against Gateshead that that we would go on and win at Wembley, because I’m a glass half full kind of person and not a glass half empty. Some people feared that we would lose, just as we had done twice before at the old Wembley.

I’d been to Wembley eleven times before for various events. It’s a wonderful stadium and I really felt that we would prove to be a better team than Mansfield.

On the way down the M1, we stopped at a service area just outside Leicester and as well as there being plenty of Darlo fans, there were a lot of Mansfield fans in the service area as well, which I found odd considering that Leicester isn’t all that far down the road from Mansfield. I thought the Mansfield buses wouldn’t stop on the way down. But the banter was really good between both sets of fans, no animosity at all. Everyone was so friendly.

We travelled on to London and parked up in the bus park front of the stadium and my friend Gary and I walked up Wembley Way from the stadium to the Tube station to meet another friend, Dave. When we got to the station, there was a lone Mansfield fan waving a huge yellow flag and singing Mansfield songs. There were no other Mansfield fans nearby, so we figured that he’d had too much to drink!

Dave joined us and we returned up Wembley Way with a real mixture of Darlo and Mansfield fans to the stadium. We got into the ground and took our seats, which were in the sunny Darlo end behind the goal to the left. I could see a couple of people we usually sat with at the Arena about 30 yards away, so I made my way between the rows of seats to have a chat with them and say hello. There were quite a few other people that I knew and I felt that I had to share that special moment of being inside Wembley with them. Everyone was naturally very excited to be there. Some of us had seen every game in the Trophy run, starting way back in the previous December against Tamworth on a cold Tuesday night. Maybe we should have made T shirts with “I was one of the 432” on them!

Twenty minutes before kick off, I saw Allan Oliver, the Newton Aycliffe manager and joked; “What’s the chances of seeing you guys being here in the Vase next year?” I didn’t realise, like every other Darlo fan, that within 18 months we’d be playing them on an equal footing in a league game.

There were some new faces as well, obviously just along for the experience. One in particular spent virtually all of the pre match build up stood up in front of us speaking on his mobile phone to his mate in the stand!

The game started. For me, Darlington midfielder Gary Smith was a key man, because he was Mister Consistency. I thought he’d been brilliant all season and we’d always played better when he was in the team. When he went off injured before half time, my mind went back to the 2000 play off final when Paul Heckingbottom limped off injured and Peterborough scored soon after. Hecky was one of the players that you could really rely upon and with Gary, I thought; “Oh, no, not again”.

The game remained goalless and every Darlo fan was getting more and more anxious. I was still adamant that we were going to win, but I wasn’t as convinced as I had been before the game. It looked as if we were heading for the dreaded penalty shootout and we all knew that Darlo weren’t very good at those.

And then, in the last minute of extra time, we got that famous throw in away to our right as we looked. When the ball bounced off the top of the crossbar, it was the smallest man on the pitch, Chris Senior, who was waiting to head it into the roof of the net!

For the semi final, I summarised on the radio with Ray Simpson and I screamed when Liam Hatch got away and scored the winner in the first leg. This scream for Senior’s winner was much louder and different, in fact, I’ve never screamed like that before or since. It was a long scream that left me completely breathless and looking down at the floor. I guess it was a build up of all the emotion throughout the afternoon. I was very breathless.

I got my breath back and looked around me. All the fans were bouncing around and the noise was fantastic. The game restarted and I glanced up at the Royal Box and saw the Trophy glistening in the sun. I thought; “That’s for us” and got emotional.

We cleared their free kick and on the final whistle, there was a huge roar from the Darlo fans and a lot of tears.

We stayed in the ground to savour the moment until the last Darlo player left the pitch. We were the last ones back on the bus and we buzzed all the way home. We all thought that with the momentum and the support, we would be kicking on and gunning for promotion back to the Football League the following season.