“I’m a Football League turnstile operator now!” – an extract from Erik Samuelson’s new book on AFC Wimbledon ‘All Togther Now’

Seb had found six penalties that Walker had taken; four were hit down the middle of the goal and two to the keeper’s right.

Seb takes up the story, ‘When Walker was walking up I half-knew in my head that I had to hold on a little bit. If you watch the penalties, in a lot of them I went quite early to try and cover the ground. With Walker I thought I’ve got to hold on as long as I can. I was going to dive right but I knew that I had to delay it and ultimately that was what transpired. If he had blasted it down the middle it would have been hit or miss whether I got a foot to it or a toe to it and if that would be enough to keep it out. Luckily he went slightly to the right with not a lot of pace and obviously the rest is the rest.’

Seb saved it. So much of football is narrow margins and this was a classic example. Walker had tried a Panenka penalty, striking it not very hard down the middle of the goal. If he’d hit it harder Seb probably wouldn’t have been able to stop it. Ironically, if he had done a ‘classic Panenka’ and hit a slow, lazy chip down the middle, Seb would probably have completed his dive and been lying on the ground as the ball drifted past. When they go in you look cool and the goalkeeper looks foolish.

When they don’t, however, it’s a different story.

Gary Brabin couldn’t believe his eyes, ‘I remember Jason Walker doing that penalty in practice and the lads had a go at him over it and said he should do it properly. I was going to say something to him but I never did because I’d seen the players having a go at him. I thought “well that’s him told” and I didn’t want to put something in his head. But I don’t think anyone in the stadium could believe what he’d done.’

For a moment no one registered what they’d seen. The TV commentator said it was a goal, until he realised that Seb had stuck up ‘a strong hand’, as the goalkeeping coaches say, and saved it, even as he dived to his right.

Up stepped Ismail Yakubu to take his penalty. Terry wasn’t confident, ‘Yaks was the one I wouldn’t have fancied. He had been practising them before. People said he used to wait until the keeper moved before hitting it, but I don’t know how you do that. I took penalties and only missed one and there’s no way in a million years I would have the nerve to do that. But he took a beautiful penalty, didn’t he?’ Indeed he did; he took two steps and coolly side-footed the ball, not very hard, one way as Mark Tyler dived the other. I have watched the DVD many times and I always enjoy Steve Bower, the commentator, going almost full Partridge with, ‘Oh and Yakubu.’

We were nearly there at 3-2 to us and set point. Midfielder Steven Gregory, who had been due to take a penalty until he was injured and substituted, turned to the TV cameras, raised a finger and almost screamed ‘one more’.

Back to Terry. He was now animatedly, and yet distractedly, chatting to a policeman who had wandered on to the pitch and ended up beside him. Later I asked him what he was talking about. ‘No idea. No idea at all,’ was the answer.

Each team had one penalty left. If Luton missed, or if we scored, we were in the Football League.

Jake Howells, at 20 the youngest player on the pitch, stepped forward and scored a perfect penalty to make it 3-3.

Next was our club captain and top scorer Danny Kedwell. In moments of great tension some behaviour is completely irrational and so, as Danny set off, Simon Bassey shouted at him, ‘Pull your socks up, you look a tramp. It looks tired, it looks messy.’ Immediately Terry shouted in response, ‘Just leave him alone.’ Simon continued to grumble, ‘It’s not a good look, socks round your ankles, it don’t look good.’ Danny ignored him.

I asked Danny if he’d wanted Howells to miss, in which case we’d have won 3-2 and be in the Football League without needing him to take our fifth penalty. Or did he want Howells to score so that the decider lay with him? He’s a striker so the answer was obvious, ‘I wanted Jake Howells to score so I could get the winner.

‘My previous penalty was at home versus Rushden. I’d missed the one before that and Bass had said, “In future, just smash it. When you smash a ball no one’s going to save it because you hit it so hard.” I took one in training and smashed it into the roof of the net and he said, “There you go, that’s how you do it,” and that’s how I did it after that. Bass was great like that.

‘At Manchester I thought, “I’m absolutely leathering this.” Don’t aim for the corner, just leather it. I wasn’t nervous – it was really weird. As I walked up I was thinking, “How am I going to celebrate? Do I jump into the crowd, do I run to the players?” The referee had the ball in his hand and he went to pass it to me and I said “drop it on the floor”. I don’t like taking it off the referee. I don’t know why.’

I wouldn’t be going into such detail if Danny had missed, and if we’d not been promoted to the Football League you probably wouldn’t be reading this book, so it can’t be a surprise to read that he scored. It was 4-3 and, as Radio WDON co-commentator Rob Cornell shouted in an over-excited voice that ratcheted up to castrato levels, ‘We’re in League 2.’

Lee Minshull, who was next in line to take a penalty if Danny missed, felt a huge wave of relief sweep over him.

Danny ran to the corner flag. Jon Main was so sure that Danny would score that he’d already set off, which is why, despite his injured knee, he was the first to reach him.

“I looked for Terry but I had lost sight of him in the pandemonium on the pitch so I set off to offer condolences to Luton. Their directors, Gary Sweet and David Wilkinson, said, with a great deal more dignity and good grace than I suspect I’d have been able to muster if they’d won, ‘If we had to lose I’m glad it was to you,’ a sentiment later echoed to me by Gary Brabin.

I returned to my seat just in time to see a shirt-sleeved Terry on the pitch, discovering the child within him, smashing an imaginary penalty into the roof of the net and running, arms aloft, towards the fans to celebrate. Eileen surfaced from the ladies’ and discovered that club president Dickie Guy’s wife, Josie, had locked herself in the next cubicle while the penalties were taken. Eileen had heard the roars and they were so loud she assumed we’d lost until, as she emerged, someone in a blue top raced past the ladies’ door, screaming with delight. A steward confirmed the result.

My favourite memory of the post-match celebrations was when I overheard Traci Sleet, widely known as Traci Turnstile for her matchday volunteering, say ‘I’m a Football League turnstile operator now.’ How lovely.

All Together Now (Pitch Publishing) is out now.