Harbinger Of Glory

Chapter 265: A Formality!

From behind the goal, it happened almost too fast to process.

One second the ball was in the air, dropping toward the edge of the area, and the next there was a leg swinging through it, sending the ball moving like a blur through the bodies that tried to get in its way and didn’t.

THWACK!

That was the only sound escaping the coffers of the pitch as the ball smashed into the back of the net.

A split second was all it had taken, and a split second was all it took.

"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!! TEENAGE KICKS! THAT IS SOMETHING STRAIGHT OUT OF A FAIRYTALE"

The commentator ranted on the broadcast for a second, trying to find words to describe, but the words were just not coming.

In the stadium, the lower stand behind the goal collapsed into itself.

People fell into each other while their arms went everywhere.

There was simply no space.

A man directly in front went first.

Both arms of his arms shot skyward before his legs gave way slightly, and the woman beside him caught him without thinking because she was already falling herself.

Behind them, the chaos spread backwards through the rows before bouncing back to the front like a ricochet, and that was all the barriers set at the front needed to give way.

The Fans halted for a second, but in the next, they didn’t need any convincing.

People jumped onto the pitch in droves, overwhelming the stewards who had been wrapped around the perimeter.

Their first outlook was the corner flag, where Leo had turned to face them with his shirt gone and his arms out, and for once, they were able to experience the overwhelming emotions coursing around the pitch.

In the gantry, the commentary had briefly stopped making grammatical sense.

"That’s— he’s— Wigan have— Leo Calderon—"

The main commentator tried to gather his words, but they were simply not coherent.

"Oh, leave it, James, and just enjoy the moment," his partner spat after a second.

"Wigan Athletic have won the Championship playoff final," the main commentator said, slower now, making sure each word landed properly.

After that, he just stopped talking and let the stadium pour through the microphone and into the broadcast for a few seconds, because it was doing a better job than any sentence he could construct.

The cameras moved across Wembley, finding faces and moments, before settling on the corner flag where Leo was somewhere inside a mass of bodies, some in Wigan shirts and training kits, others in normal attire.

But the consensus between the two parties was that they refused to let him surface properly before pulling him back under again.

After a while, Jake, who had been on the bench for the whole game, got through to Leo.

He grabbed his face in both hands and then, before Leo could respond, he slapped him twice across the cheek, but it was more out of joy than inflicting pain.

Leo pushed him away, laughing, but Jake came straight back.

"That," the commentator came back softly, watching the scenes with something in his voice that had moved past professional entirely.

"That right there. That is what this season has been. That is all of it, in one moment, on one face."

"Welcome to the Premier League, Wigan Athletic."

Amid the scenes going on on the pitch, the official stood back and watched from a distance as the corner flag area remained buried under people.

He checked his watch and saw that it was just dirty seconds, give or take, remaining for the game.

He knew what any reasonable person knew, which was that restarting the game was a formality rather than a genuine continuation, but the job was the job, and he would see it through regardless.

"Those bastards have really done it," he heard from one of the voices in the video room.

He chuckled at that before looking back at the corner where the stewards moved through the pitch in lines with the police and security filling the gaps, and the process of returning the fans to the stands began.

It was easier than it might have been because most of them had already had what they came for.

The moment had happened, they had been part of it, and that was enough, and so when the stewards gestured toward the stands, the majority went without much resistance, still singing, still embracing each other, but moving in the right direction.

The cameras found the Coventry end and all the emotions there lay bare.

A man in his fifties with his scarf around his neck stared at the pitch with the hollow expression of someone who has just watched something slip away that they can’t quite believe has slipped away.

A younger fan beside him had his head in his hand, and just behind him, another older man had his face in his hands, trying to cover the tears.

That was the other side of football.

The losers and, particularly, the ones who had fallen at the last.

"Heartbreak for Coventry," the commentator said.

"They have had a season of their own. They deserve to be here, and they deserve better than this ending, but football doesn’t always give you what you deserve. That’s the hardest part of it. They’ll be back. I genuinely believe that. But right now that means nothing to them, and I understand why."

The Wigan players returned to their half a moment later to restart the game, and Leo was glad he had been careful throughout the game because the referee, with a smile on his face, met Leo and awarded him a yellow card.

The referee checked both ends after that, waited for the Coventry players to set up at the centre circle, and blew his whistle.

The team, formerly known as the bantams, immediately pushed forward, hoping that by some miracle, the game might have a different ending.

Their winger took the ball wide and drove at Joe Bennet with whatever was left in his legs.

Bennet saw what the former latter probably had in mind, so the moment the winger knocked the ball past him, Bennet stepped across and shielded the ball to the byline.

The winger stuck his leg in, trying to poke the ball away, but Bennet rolled it sideways to Whatmough who the moment the ball got to his feet, looked up once and smashed it as far down the pitch as he could.

And before the ball could land, the referee’s whistle sounded.