The scorer of the first goal of the home leg against Bradford has been officially annotated as an own goal, and that’s left a real sense of frustration around the corridors of Brunton Park with the GoPro camera angle in particular showing that our very own John-Kymani Gordon got a decisive touch.
The 20-year-old Palace loanee celebrated as such, but he now approaches the subject with a sense of resignation at the fact that goals at this level rarely go before a dubious goals committee, and that the official records are rarely changed.
“I’ve looked at it over and over, with all of the different angles on Sky, and from the club videos as well, and I’ll be honest, it does look like an own goal,” he conceded. “It’s hard though, but I’ve stopped wasting my breath because it is really difficult to see that I touched it.
“It’s now one of those ‘it is what it is’ kind of things, but in my heart I’m always going to take that goal because I know I touched it. It might have been the slightest of touches, but I definitely touched it.
“At the end of the day I’m happy that if they want to call it an own goal at least I forced it to go in. Whatever, it’s how it goes.
“I will admit, I even looked at some of the photos as well and you can see the way my foot has gone towards the ball, and it shows that it went in the direction of the goal as well.
“It is annoying because I would have liked to have been credited with the goal, it’s my job to score, but whatever they’ve decided we’re going to Wembley and that means I have another chance to score anyway.”
As he rightly alluded to, that match opener provided the springboard to the eventual progression to the Sunday final.
“All of the lads were telling me to bring out a celebration that I haven’t done yet, and now when I think about it I’m happy that I didn’t, because it’s gone down as that own goal,” he explained. “I think I’m going to save that for Wembley.
“But the reaction from the fans when it went in, and the support we’ve had all season, it’s been crazy, to be fair. The way the fans lift us up when we’re on the pitch, I can’t really explain the feeling.
“When you do something well, the feeling they give you just makes you want to keep going and going. They kept it going for us until the last whistle on Saturday, and then they came running on the pitch.
“It’s a feeling I’ve never experienced before. I’ve never been through anything like it, it’s amazing. I think these are the moments you never forget in your career.
“I’m just at the start of mine in league football and I know I’ll never forget this. I just want to keep feeling that same feeling of winning and the fans enjoying it with us.”
His excellent personal performance last Saturday came off the back of having served a vry harsh three-match suspension.
“That was very frustrating because I had basically just got back into the team,” he commented. “I don’t really have anything to say about it really because when you look at it now, we’re going to Wembley and that’s all that matters.
“That’s why I wanted to give it my all against Bradford. I had a lot of anger that I wanted to release in the right way, obviously with not having played for so long, so when I was out there the other day I just wanted to prove a point.”
Pushing that stuff away, it’s been and gone, we wondered what it felt like when it sunk in that the next game to play is on the biggest stage there is.
“It’s crazy, to be fair, and at the moment we’re just taking every day as it comes,” he said. “We’re doing the same things, but when you go and accomplish something like that you just feel more together with your team mates than ever.
“That’s because you’ve just achieved something and it’s given us the chance to get promoted. We’re on a real high as a group and hopefully we can keep that same spirit and bring it to the game on Sunday - and win.
“It would mean a lot to achieve that because it’ll go down in the history books. To be part of that for a football club is big. It really is just crazy.
“I can’t wait for that moment of when we’ve won and we can just enjoy it. We’ll be able to look back at everything we’ve been through to get here and enjoy it together as a whole collective of a football club.”
When he spoke to the press for the first time back in January, when his loan spell had just been agreed, he spoke about a club that seemed ready for a real promotion push, but in terms of a first ever loan outing it has to be a dream come true.
“It’s all been very exciting, and I haven’t been here for too long, but it feels like it’s actually been a long while,” he told us. “I’ve enjoyed every moment of it, it’s been a completely different experience, one that’s got me out of my comfort zone, and I’m happy in myself that it has been this enjoyable.
“It shows that I can get out of my comfort zone and I really can’t wait to get to Wembley. All of my family is going to be there, and that will be the first time they’ve seen me play league football. To do that, to see me playing at Wembley, it really is just crazy.
“I’ve got messages from some coaches from Palace telling me that not everyone has played at Wembley, and stuff like that. It just shows how big it is, and for me to play there in my first season of league football is mad.
“Have I thought about it, yeah, but I don’t want to think about it too much or I might end up getting too nervous. I don’t want to overthink it, so I’ll wait until I step on the pitch before I do that.
“Like I say, we can’t take anything for granted but I’m going to give it my all because it’s big to be part of a club’s history, not only for me but for my family as well.
“If you’d said when I came here that this would happen, I just don’t know what I’d have said. I think I felt personally that we were going to get promoted, we didn’t end up getting in the top three, but we now have this chance to do it.
“I just never knew that I’d end up at Wembley – yeah, I’m going to Wembley – so it’s a win-win really.”
So how beneficial does he feel that this loan spell has been?
“I feel like I’ve grown so much,” he replied. “I’ve had to stay up here on my own sometimes, and I’ve picked up so many little life skill type things.
“I’ve learned how to cook, and other things like that, and it’s been about looking after myself with no help from my mum or dad or anyone.
“I’ve grown a lot on the football side, like learning how to deal with emotions and stuff like that. It’s the things I used to struggle with in the past, like dealing with my anger, whereas here you’ve got to learn how to deal with it and keep going, because it’s the team that matters.
“I feel like I’ve grown so much and my family can see that also, which is a good thing.”
