After a couple of drinks we wandered down to the ground as the landlord had stopped serving. After a ten-fifteen minute wait the ground was opened up and we made our way into the main stand to find our seats.
Setanta were televising the game and our location close to the dugout meant we ended up on camera several times during the game according to our sources back in the Old Ale House who were watching it on the big screen.
As you would expect from two teams who finished a point apart in the league, the game was a pretty close affair. The first half ended 0.0 and neither team were able to create a clearcut chance. In the second half, Braintree looked better value for the win and created a number of chances from corners but their best chance came from a Salisbury mistake. Aaron Cook passed the ball back to Clarke who was expecting him to clear it for a throw. The ball was too strong and raced towards the goal - from our angle it looked like it might go in but luckily it went wide for a corner.
Salisbury came back into the game after that and the introduction of Robbie Matthews for Sales made a big difference. Prince took a couple of free kicks that just needed a final touch and Tubbs had a couple of half chances. Braintree then came even closer to taking the lead when a shot hit the post and was cleared by the Whites. This brought the Salisbury fans to life as they sensed that their team needed them to get behind them - the stands and terraces were suddenly full of song.
Tommy Widdrington came on to try and settle things down at the back by playing a defensive midfielder role in place of Matt Holmes who had tried his best all afternoon but hadn't managed to stop Braintree taking charge in the midfield.
Three minutes later and Salisbury took off on the counter attack, the ball was cleared to Robbie Matthews and he took the ball down the left wing before passing to Luke Prince. Prince put a low cross in to the box and Tubbs popped in front of the defender to wrong foot the keeper and smash the ball into the net.
If the celebrations against Forest had been mental, this doubled it. I threw my arms in the air to celebrate so hard that it felt like my right arm had left the socket! I was in pain for the next 10 minutes but was too busy singing on the Whites to let it worry me too much.
Braintree's manager George Borg made a treble substitution and it almost worked as Ryan Clarke made a dramatic diving save to deny a header. Into injury time and it kicked off in front of us as Luke Prince was grappled to the ground by one of Braintree's coaches. Everyone got involved and a couple of the Braintree players went after Widdrington at one point but the referee got everything under control. Prince went off as a precaution and everyone waited for the ref to blow up - as he did, the party started with a pitch invasion.
The Whites were going up to the Conference! What a way to end the season.
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