As far as I remember, the playoffs began for me when I said I wouldn’t go to the first leg if it was Coventry. I hate everything about that weird, horrible rivalry. I hate CrossCountry trains. I hate the ground being halfway to Nuneaton. I hate pretending to care about Coventry. I hate how we never, ever win there. I’d only been once before – for Coventry 4-1 Gillingham in 2015, where I saw 50% of the Bradley Dack goals I’ve ever seen live. I wasn’t about to go back. Bristol’s a nice place, I’ll go there again if it’s them, I’ll even go there via London and I’ll have a nice time. I’m not going to Coventry.

I went to Coventry. I had the same experience as everyone else who did. I went to the home leg. I had the same experience as everyone else who did. It’s maybe easy (or at least possible) to forget, amidst the impossibly late goals in the second leg and the final, that we had the 89th minute winner in the first leg – a goal that had me trying to climb directly up the stands the rest of the way to Nuneaton. But all in all, the same thing happened to me as happened to everyone else. Mostly the same things happened to me as happened to everyone else in London – all fantastic, all transcendental, but all pretty much covered already, anyway.

—

The queues for the toilets at Wembley had been an absolute nightmare all afternoon. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but on about 93 minutes there was a break in play, and it looked like it’d be a few minutes. I’ve got time to nip down before extra time. I’ll actually miss less of the game doing this. It’s a good decision. I’ll be pleased about this later. A huge cheer. Ah God, Sheffield United have scored, haven’t they? They haven’t. Sunderland have scored. I’m in the toilets at Wembley. What do you do?

You do the only thing any rational person would do. You stand in the corner of the toilets and kick the wall, as hard as you can, for the rest of injury time. Your head has totally gone. Your big toe might actually have gone. It really hurts.

Everyone I’ve spoken to since seemed to think I’d be gutted to have missed the goal. I had about seven minutes, stood there on my own, with my own crazed thoughts, my own hazy memories of absolutely everything, them all flying past me faster and faster with every kick of the wall, with every moment trying harder and harder not to explode, not checking my phone, just waiting for the next roar. I didn’t have to think about what was actually happening on the pitch. Everything that could possibly be happening was already happening, all at once, in my head, anyway. A moment that was only mine, but somehow everyone else’s too, walking back into the stands knowing that – then seeing that – everyone was deliriously happy. There’s Tom, there’s Ged, there’s Rory, there’s Eleanor. You don’t know it yet, but there’s the person who’s going to take a photo of you all in a few minutes and then later tell your mate on twitter it was her – that’s going to make you want to cry for some reason you’ll never fathom too. There’s thirty odd thousand people. There’s everyone you’ve ever loved, ever cared about, they’re all here too, you know they are. And now, there’s me.

Elvis’ll be here soon. He actually will, you know.

At that point, I wouldn’t have had it any different. I didn’t need to see the winning goal, I didn’t want to see it, ever. At half-time I texted a mate to say “I have spent most of the day crying my eyes out already. It’s actually a relief that we are losing, I don’t think I could cope if we won”. I was right.

Then, the same as everyone else. Wembley Way, back to the Marquis Cornwallis, back to Covent Garden, back to the hotel, back to King’s Cross in the morning. Some goodbyes. Seeing Leo Hjelde carrying a massive crate of Budweiser onto the team coach, but mostly the same as everyone else. That’s that, then. Except that’s not that.

I’d only bought tickets back as far as Doncaster. I’d agreed with Tom that we’d go to the Paul Heaton gig at Bramall Lane on the Sunday if we won. Off to the Rutland to check if the stickers are still there (they weren’t, then they were again). Inexplicably and tunelessly singing Eliezer Mayenda’s name to various Lightning Seeds songs. Shouting “just play Chasing Rainbows and get off” at Rick Witter. Lots of just screaming, completely incoherently. “I’m Paul Heaton and I fucking hate football”. Caravan of Love as a final encore, and the release of a load of red and white balloons. Gatecrashing a footballing celebration that had somehow become ours. “Are you ready for the time of your life?”. Just had it, mate. Two Sheffield United fans being lovely and gracious – much more gracious to us than we deserved, anyway – on the way out. Incredible. Well, that’s definitely that, then.

—

I said in Wembley that I was going to try to never see the winning goal. I didn’t go back into the stands during injury time because I didn’t understand what caused what had just happened, and in some mad way I didn’t want to meddle with it, didn’t want to anger the football gods by going back yet. But why now? Why not watch it now, days later? What were the football gods going to do to us now? Relegate us with zero points if you want. You can’t match the bleakness of seeing “Declan John (88)” pop up on a screen in a Harvester pub next to a roundabout vaguely near Bolton, you can’t take away what’s just happened. You just can’t hurt us any more, not now. I’m fatalistic to my bones and that goal just wasn’t for me: not like that, anyway.

On Thursday evening I was walking back to the station to go back home to see my parents – my mam’s not been well for a while, and I was going to a hospital appointment with them. As with the rest of the week, the weekend was flashing through my mind again – being evacuated from a non-existent fire at the Marquis, wondering if everything actually is going to be alright, Mayenda trying to blast the roof of the net into orbit, not seeing the goal, kicking a wall, the loudest Wise Men Say of all time, refusing to watch the goal, the Costel Pantilimon song afterwards for some reason, refusing to watch the goal, still refusing to watch the goal.

Suddenly, abruptly, everything makes sense: that’s not that, not just yet anyway, and you have to spend an hour working out how you got here. You won’t be able to work out why, but you have to try, and you have to try to write it down. It’s best you don’t stop, you have to just let everything out, because something’s just been sparked off in your head and if you don’t write it down right now you’ll lose something and you’ll never get it back again, not the way it is now, anyway. The train’s passing through Darlington now. I’ll write the rest of this in a bit. I think I know but I’m not exactly sure how it goes just yet.

It was my dad who asked first. “We’ve recorded the game if you ever do want to see it”.

“Do you want to watch the goal, mam? I’ve not seen it yet”. And I’m holding onto my mam as, five days later, the ball slowly curls into the bottom corner.

And that’s it. Even if it’s not why I didn’t see it at the time, and even if I only suddenly realised it walking past the Adelphi, that’s why I didn’t want to watch it for days after, I know it is. And that’s that, that’s definitely, finally that, now. The football gods might yet send us flying all the way back to where we came from with as few points as they fancy, but everyone was there, everyone is here and – I can’t emphasise this enough – everything is going to be alright.