‘It’s a beautiful sound.’
The young man, standing on the terrace outside the Stoke Arms, was absolutely right. There was a feint roar coming from some place in the near distance, below, just five hundred yards away. We both stood there, at night, amazed, looking at the neon glow reaching right up to the stars above the houses which stretched right down to the ground, St James Park, unseen yet unmistakably there, somewhere.
There was the faintest, tinny sound of a stadium announcer, each time followed by the tremendous roar of a large crowd, the largest seen in this part of Exeter – anywhere in Exeter – for many, many years.
‘It's a fine sound.’ I agreed.
The glow was concentrated in a small part of the town and didn't match the surrounding humble, terraced houses. It seemed to rise, a vertical torch, reaching right up to the stars. It was eerie, not least for the sounds that never normally accompanied it. It could have been straight from the film
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the bit where the space ship finally lands and the strange people emerge from the space ship. Only, in place of the spooky, five chords of synthesiser, there was a different form of communication, a unique one known only to true football fans. It was the sound of 9,000 people. It was no less profound.
In a way, it
was a close encounter, yet of an even more surreal, unexpected kind. For tonight, in a balmy, swirling evening, under low, heavy clouds, a strange collection of stars had been visited upon Exeter. A team of superstars. They had come to a funny little place, hidden away at the very end of Sidwell Street and Old Tiverton Road, a very old part of Exeter. A far cry from the mega-stadiums and mega-fame of the Premiership.
A tremendous, fantastic run in the FA Cup had all come to a final night of magic and pure fantasy, here in the city of Exeter. St James' Park stands amidst the old Grecian district of Exeter, an area the imperial Romans would snub as they lived it up within the old city walls, some two thousand years ago when Exeter was established. Their villas and heated baths were the Old Trafford of Exeter... now Man Utd were to undergo the Grecian experience!
During the day, throughout the city, you could feel the electric, the buzz of thousands of little groups of people, caught in gossip and chatter about the great event about to take place this evening. People who normally had no interest in football were willingly swept up into the cauldron of a city experiencing mass emotion. They had become metal filings drawn to the magnet of a common wish: heroic achievement against the odds, national recognition and fame, and the impossible!
The whole city was now united in pure love and devotion of its little band of heroes. Exeter City were playing the mighty Manchester United, and all here in a quiet, sleepy little city in Devon.
The local newspaper - the
Express & Echo evening paper - had done a tremendous job in telling the story over the five weeks leading up to the tie. Its coverage seemed to get bigger and bigger day by day, first two pages, three pages, four pages. This evening its paper was even thicker and heavier than normal:
Eight page special souvenir pull-out. And that was ignoring its eight pages at the back of the paper in the Sport section.
The frenzy had all started with the Third Round draw back in December... and then continued... and continued... and continued. And continued still! Exeter drew at Old Trafford, probably their greatest result since it all started back in 1920 in the old Southern League. The Man Utd manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, said it was his team's worst ever performance!
The national media immediately sensed that something unusual was happening between Man Utd and Exeter City and that it would continue in that small, sedate university city down in Devon.
And for this strange visitation they were all there... the national press, BBC1 for live television coverage to an audience of seven million. Radio 5 were live in the morning, their breakfast programme broadcast from Exeter (well, Ide, three miles away).
In the morning, all of the national papers carried features on the match, the miracle of £80,000 Exeter City facing a team of £70 million superstars.
This bizarre mis-match was all about the tiny man facing the giant, the classic David versus Goliath. It seemed to take England right back to a nostalgic past not seen since the 1950s; it could have been a fantasy from an Ealing film, like the small man against the giant corporation in
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) or
The Man in the White Suit (1951).
They all said that if Exeter won it would be the biggest shock of all time. It surely would. Perhaps even greater than when Yeovil Town, of the Southern League, beat mighty Sunderland back in 1949, not far from here. Maybe it is a Westcountry tradition, like an Ivor Dewdney pasty. Perhaps, to use a pasty metaphor, Exeter are Ivor Dewdney - sold only in Exeter and Devon and full of local, wholesome ingredients - and Man Utd are Ginsters, made in Cornwall but manufactured in the millions and sold and supported nationwide.
That Sunderland team cost £60,000 in 1949, just £20,000 less than the Exeter team to play tonight; it now costs £100 million to assemble a championship-winning team. Exeter's highest paid player is Sean Devine, at £1,800 a week, it is said. Man Utd have players earning £90,000 in one week, an awesome gap.
Well, it was now the moment of truth, just five minutes away from kick-off. How would our team - tiny Exeter - fare against the giants? Would they freeze? Would they do us proud? Did we even have any right to expect anything from them?
With M, I entered the Stoke Arms - what a commotion! The place was absolutely packed, and with all manner of people.
There were people you would never normally see watching football: a batch of female Spanish students; old men awoken from years of apathy; the landlord from London; even Ry, a friend of Ol down the Mint. A whole community was drawn to the greatest spectacle in Exeter for many a year and a scene repeated in
every pub throughout the city, without a doubt.
The place was heaving, everyone jostling to get their drink and sit down before the match. There must have been over one hundred people, most sitting at tables neatly lined up in rows, facing the big screen. It was a chapel, its congregation united in paying homage to its heroes. There was nowhere else to sit, of course.
In the end, we found a place right at the back of the pub, on a little platform set up for the darts board. A chair each and a view of two screens - the big screen at the front and the tv screen to the right.
'What are you lot doing up here? You in the 1 and 9 stalls?' The landlord - the Londoner who sounds just like Mike in the Young Ones - was in high spirits. A very decent bloke and a great sense of humour. A fine landlord.
The team which drew at Old Trafford now contained household names, more Exeter players than I had ever been able to name in the past: Dean Moxey (aged 18, born Exeter), Andy Taylor (aged 18, born Exeter), Sean Devine, Steve Flack, Kwame Ampudu, Alex Jeannin, Paul Jones, Scott Hiley, Gary Sawyer, Danny Clay, and Santos Gaia.
It started gingerly, barely a touch of the ball in the first half. Exeter City held off the ball too much, barely gaining even a touch. Man Utd exploited this and were allowed almost total freedom to launch wave-after-wave of attack. They duly scored after nine minutes - the superstar teenager Cristiano Ronaldo - and we feared the worst. Was it all just hopeless optimism or wishful thinking? A rout?
The pub crowd was subdued. But, slowly-but-surely, we gained the right to cheer... very loudly, even for the slightest effort. A nutmeg on Ronaldo (playing him at his own game!) and the wildest of cheers for the most simple throw-in awarded. 1-0 at half-time.
At the interval, time for refreshments. Another pint of Stella Artois always refreshes and lightens the spirits, but with Exeter City on BBC1 - broadcast from just 500 yards down the road - an orange juice would've had the same effect; this bunch of heroes were intoxicating.
The second half began and - as I hoped for and even suspected - the great manager, Alex Inglethorpe, had had a little word at half-time, probably to the effect of: 'we've nothing to lose in this game, we may as well do this club and city proud and go out and enjoy ourselves'. Put simply, Exeter came back out to take the game to the superstars. They succeeded!
Exeter started closing down the Man Utd players more quickly, not allowing them any comfort. Then, they started playing!
We started passing the ball around and launching little attacks, down both flanks. Steve Flack used his giant presence to cause trouble and some goalscoring chances arrived.
The BBC showed several close-up shots of Alex Ferguson and he was looking more and more frantic, chewing his gum even faster than usual and appearing worried... seriously worried! Exeter had them rattled!
The cheering and emotion in the pub was reaching - to use the Nick Hornby cliche -
fever pitch. None more so than when Sean Devine had the ball in the back of the neck... disallowed for offside.
Ivor Dewdney pasty website:
http://www.ivordewdney.co.uk/I actually prefer Ginsters pasties, but Dewdney's have a fine reputation.
