One of my best memories of following the darling bud's is strangely enough a defeat, but it turned out to be a glorious defeat.

We had drawn Bolton in the anglo-scottish cup, and in the first leg for the first 20 minutes saint's played the best football I have ever seen, 4-0 up with only 20 minutes on the clock, but Bolton were a good side and pegged us back to 4-2 by the final whistle to leave the tie very much in the balance.

I was 14 year's old and was desperate to travel to the return leg, the old man usually took me but couldn't travel because of work, thing's were now getting even more desperate, i hadn't missed a game for a couple of year's, but no way was my mum going to let me stay off school and travel down there on my own, then BINGO !!

My older brother came in from work and said him and a few mates had booked ticket's to travel down on the tudor arm's bus, after a lot of grovelling to my mother and even more persistent persuading to my brother [after all who wanted a plooky wee 14 year old cramping his style], all parties concerned agreed probably to stop me moaning.

At school the day before the trip my science teacher who was a saint's fanatic and actually ran the tudor bus commented to me "hutton, you better be in my class tomorrow if your not i'll know where you are", [yeah right i thought].

Next morning up early and bus into town proudly wearing about 3 saint's scarf's, one round each wrist which for some reason was the style at the time, first sight i saw on arriving at the bus was my teacher sitting in the front row, i had a wee laugh, funny as it was i decided best to say nothing.

After a few stop's on the way down we arrived in Bolton town centre about 3 00, still over 4 hour's to kick off so you can imagine what was on most mind's on the bus "hey mate where's the nearest pub"?, was the general cry.

I followed the crowd into the pub, i was the youngest there so a wee bit of paranoia set in and i headed straght for the corner out of sight from the bar staff, after a couple of hour's and a few lager shandie's later i was goaded into going to the bar to buying a round, after getting up the courage to do it i approached the bar and uttered a sentence which still haunt's me to this day, for some reason i thought that asking for lager would make me sound even younger than i looked, so i said "3 pint's of heavy please mister" as if asking for heavy wasn't bad enough, all you southern saint's will know they dont know what heavy is, i had to finish the sentence with "please mister", which made me sound like i was at porrelli's ice cream van waiting for a double nougat with raspberry sauce, my brother and his mate's were in uproar, but he did serve me much to my amazement, he must have felt sorry for me, but i didn't care i had been served a round of drink's in the pub, the elation never lasted long though when i clocked the afore mentioned teacher just shaking his head, he cant say nothing i thought to myself, he's on the sick from work.

It was by this time an epic journey for me, a few beer's with the boy's, joining in with all the wolf whistling at the "burd's" on the long walk to the ground singing saint's song's, all i needed to crown it all of was a good saint's win, then school tomorrow to boast of my exploit's, only thing is Bolton never read the script, Bolton were a good side in the top half of the old first division, in their previous 2 games they had held mighty liverpool to a draw at anfield and 3 day's prior to this match had beaten man utd 3-2 on this very ground.

It was a weird performance from saint's in the first half we defended deep happy to hold on to our overall lead, but still 0-0 at half time and all was well, the most exciting thing that happened in the first half was some local nutter's throwing brick's into the large saint's support from a railway embankment outside the ground but they were soon chased of by the local police with no harm done.

Bolton stepped a gear in the second half and 2 headed goal's from sammy allardyce, the latter with 2 minute's on the clock had sent their fan's wild and left us stunned, what happened next was the weirdest thing, Bolton fan's thought they had went through on the away goal rule courtesy of the 2 goal's at love st, but it became apparant that in this comp away goals counted double after extra time, so we had a lifeline, but we had to score to go through.

Our ear's were ringing to the sound of "your not singing anymore" from the home support, as saint's for the first time took the game to Bolton, great chances for richardson and somner were well saved by the keeper, despair and depression had set in, "why didn't we attack like this earlier on" i thought, then with 1 minute on the clock Richardson sent in a cross from the right for jimmy bone to head in giving the keeper no chance and send 2 000 travelling saint's fan's balistic.

The joy's of following the darling bud's, the team we all love, became ecstasy for that few minute's, that's what fan's [for the want of a better word] of the old scum dont understand, those moment's stay with us forever, but they demand it every week and go home and forget about it, okay it may only have been the 1/4 final of the anglo scottish cup but for those saint's fan's fortunate enough to be there, it was the world cup final champion's league final all rolled into one.

cheer's and keep the faith.

jersey saint.

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