All things Wembley and a weekend on the lash many years ago ... Rotherham United boss Paul Warne writes in this week's Advertiser

I’m joking, I’m joking!

Our wing-back’s extra-time strike that helped us lift the Papa John’s Trophy last Sunday was among some wonderful goals that would have graced any final.

I’m trying to remember who did what ... I know Wilesy hit a screamer, Jordi’s last-gasp leveller in normal time was excellent, Chieo didn’t know what he was doing (wink, wink) when he picked his spot from a mile out and Icky rounded things off with a strong header.

I thought Sutton’s two finishes were great as well, particularly the second one.

In the interests of honesty, I will admit that in the sixth minute of seven added on, as we trailed 2-1, I did think our race might have been run.

When Freddie — who’s a really clinical finisher — went clean through in the second half and didn’t score I was fearing it wasn’t going to be our day.

With a couple of minutes to go I was actually quite calm and was working out what I was going to say to the media after a defeat.

I even considered going and shaking the hand of my opposite number, Matt Gray, in case he ran on to the pitch at the end and I missed him, but then I thought: ‘I just can’t do that.’

I’ll fight anyone who tries to say Wilesy wasn’t the best player on the pitch, by the way!

Embarrassingly, I didn’t know the match would have extra time. I thought we’d move straight to a penalty shoot-out, as had been the case in all the previous rounds, if we drew level.

I brought on Jamie Lindsay with two minutes to go, because I felt obligated to give as many players as I could some game-time, and ended up looking like a genius!

Jamie looks back to his best after injury and I said to him: ‘Just go out there. Your family will be proud and you can always say you’ve played at Wembley.’

Then it was extra time and the good news was we had his fresh legs for another half an hour.

I think the lads were too tight in the first half. We improved in the second and then dominated extra time.

At half-time some of them looked really leggy and exhausted. We checked the data and they hadn’t got anywhere near their usual stats.

We  had to calm them down a bit. It was just a psychological legginess. As a player, you don’t want to let anyone down, you want this game to be remembered as the best game of your career and it just mounts up in your head.

This may turn out to be the one and only time some of them get to appear at Wembley. Are they going to play in an FA Cup Final or a League Cup Final? Possibly not. Champions League Final? Definitely not.

To win some silverware there is something that can’t be taken away from them.

I noticed Nigel Jemson was on Sky Sports TV duty on Sunday because he scored two goals for Rotherham in the 1996 final.

Winning at Wembley will always connect you to a club. It’s like glue. You’ll always be remembered as part of a team that triumphed at an iconic stadium.

It’s a magical thing. I just wish it was after the season and we’d already been promoted from League One so we could really enjoy it.

The reality on Sunday was, after finishing my interviews I went and kissed a few people and then started thinking about our next league game.

If the lads don’t achieve promotion at least they’ve achieved something. I’m really pleased for them. It was nice that they could enjoy me being happy at training on Tuesday but today I’ll be one bad arse again!

Nearly 13,000 fans made the trip to back us. Thank you to you all. If you were watching and thinking ‘This is exhausting’, you should try being stood in my shoes on the touchline.

In equal measure, it was exhilarating, terrifying, disgusting.

GO, JORDI!

JORDI Osei-Tutu certainly made his mark after coming on at Wembley as a substitute.

It doesn’t get much better than scoring in a cup final in the dying seconds to keep your team’s dreams alive.

That goal, at the end where all our fans were, will have given his self-belief a real boost. It was a brilliant strike.

We’ve tried to get him physically in a really good place since his January loan arrival from Arsenal, but, mentally, he’s probably been lacking a little bit of confidence.

After Sunday, though ... well, who wouldn’t feel great equalising in the last minute?

I saw him afterwards being interviewed. He hasn’t done an interview since he joined us. It will have made him feel great about himself.

SUPER SHANE

I LOVE watching Shane Ferguson in action. He plays like he’s the best kid at school.

He must have got ice in his blood because nothing bothers him. I said to him at Wembley: ‘Why don’t you get nervous at all?’ He just replied: ‘This is what it’s all about, Gaffer.’

I thought he and Wes Harding had a massive impact when they came on

We had to alter our formation from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 and that’s credit to Sutton. A system change isn’t something we normally do but we had no choice.

We weren’t using the extra man in midfield and our wing-backs were being pushed back too far.

In the end, it was like ‘Texas Hold ‘em’. All our chips were in and we just went for it. Fortunately, it came off.

ON THE P*SS WITH LITTLE DISS

CONTINUING with the cup-final theme, the morning after my 21st birthday I woke up and didn’t have a clue where I was.

It was all because I’d been a winner at Wembley two days earlier.

Let me explain ...

Long, long ago, in 1994, I was a student at Nottingham University but I was playing non-league football back in my home county of Norfolk for Diss Town.

We reached the final of the FA Vase — kind of the FA Cup for teams outside of the Football League — and we came from behind to beat Staunton Town 2-1 in extra time.

The final was the day before my 21st and the whole weekend was simply legendary.

We played at the proper Wembley, the old Wembley, and at my mum’s house there’s still a video of the game and all the stuff on the local news.

The changing rooms look rubbish. They’re just white-walled with a crappy fridge containing some bottles of Lucozade Sport. The teams walk up the tunnel and it looks like they are walking into a shopping centre. Everything in the footage looks terrible, especially when you compare it to how good things are at the new Wembley.

There were more than 30,000 fans inside the stadium, which for a Diss match was ridiculous. We were used to playing in front of, well, not quite ten men and a dog but not more than 20 men and two dogs.

The pitch was massive and I recall me going down with cramp in virtually every part of it during extra time. Remember that the final coincided with my university days when I was a stone heavier and enjoyed alcohol more than I do now.

I was in a good place. I had slippy hair. Everything was right with my life.

Not only was I really pleased to play, I was also really pleased my mum and dad were there to see me play. I could see how excited they were.

It was a huge thing back home. It was all over Look East, which is the Norfolk equivalent of Look North up here.

There aren’t many teams in the Look East area. There’s, like, Norwich City, King’s Lynn, then no-one. Suddenly Diss Town were someone!

We scored in the 98th minute or something to take the game into extra time and then my mate, Paul Gibbs, converted a penalty that won us the cup.

To this day, when I watch it back I think he’s going to miss. He just hits it too confidently! I wouldn’t do that in front of nobody at the training ground let alone at Wembley in front of the biggest crowd I’d ever played in front of.

All the Diss single lads went out in London that night while all the lads with their partners stayed in the team hotel. As we left we could see the married men looking at us with envy in their eyes and wishing they could come with us.

I remember sitting steaming in Trafalgar Square at six o’clock in the morning waiting for the trains to start running so we could get back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel late and the bus was waiting. Very kindly, the wife of one of the players had packed up our rooms for us. We drank all the way back to Norfolk and then there was an open-top-bus parade in Diss which was just amazing. Then we went out and got steaming again.

I was drunk in some pub and had nowhere to stay so I asked a barman if he had any spare rooms upstairs. He replied ‘No problem, Warney’ so I crashed in one of them.

So that’s how I got to I wake up the day after my 21st birthday thinking: ‘Where the hell am I?’

It was just a great, great part of my life. I loved every minute of it.

A few years later in life I became a professional footballer and it all became a bit more serious.

Pros have money issues: you’re always craving the next contract, the next bit of security, the mortgage being paid off before you retire.

Playing with Diss at Wembley is one of my best memories and, when I look back on it, it had nothing to do with money, absolutely nothing. I think I got a 20-quid win bonus! More often than not, the best moments of your life are the simplest.

Two days of hitting the booze is completely against everything I am now, by the way.

I’m pleased to report that none of the Rotherham lads turned up on Tuesday to prepare for this weekend’s Charlton Athletic match after 36 hours on the sauce!

STICK FOR CHIEO

CHIEDOZIE Ogbene sounded like he’d swallowed a helium balloon when he rocked up for training last Friday.

It was his first day back after his exploits with the Republic of Ireland — including that goal against Belgium.

He’s a loud and happy lad even when he’s not scoring international overhead kicks so you can imagine what a high-pitched whirlwind came crashing through the doors at Roundwood.

The lads gave him all kinds of stick but that’s only because he’s such a popular figure in the dressing room. The more you’re liked, the more you cop for it.

Chieo’s had a really good season with us and now he’s the talk of the town over the water as well. He’s a fans’ favourite here and in Ireland.

He’s had a brilliant first season as an international and hopefully he’ll play more games in the summer for the Republic. Talking of games, Chieo has played a lot of them this season, particularly when you add his Republic ones to the mix.

Generally, what happens in international breaks that include two friendly fixtures is that players play in one match but not the other. That way they get a bit of much-needed rest.

Another of our lads, Shane Ferguson, was away with Northern Ireland and he featured in their game against Luxembourg before sitting out their clash with Hungary.

On medical advice, we didn’t start Chieo in our last league match before the break because there was a risk he could pick up a hamstring injury.

Then, unfortunately, he played the full 90 minutes for the Republic against Belgium followed by 82 against Lithuania. I wasn’t best pleased about that.