THE YEAR BILLY'S TINY VILLAGERS BECAME GIANTS

North Ferriby lived out Wembley dream

- CHRIS DUNLAVY

MARATHON journeys. A gammy goalie. Last-gasp goals and late comebacks. North Ferriby United overcame more obstacles than Odysseus on their unlikely charge to FA Trophy glory.

But the foe that sticks most firmly in the mind of skipper Liam King was a bottomless buffet in a Hampshire hotel.

The Villagers, then of National League North, had already disposed of Mickleover Sports, Boston United and Hyde when they were drawn away to Farnborough in round three – a round trip of eight hours and 450 miles that necessitated an overnight stay.

“We were a village club from a regional league,” says King, an energetic midfielder who had joined the East Yorkshire side from Matlock in 2013.

“Most of the lads in that team had never stayed anywhere before a game, and it completely threw us off. Especially the food.

“After breakfast, all footballers have something pre-match. It’s usually just a little bite at about half-past eleven. But the hotel had put this big buffet on and the lads were piling into it.

“Tom Denton is six-foot-five and if there’s owt going free, he’ll have it. He had these plates stacked up with fried bacon. It was like he was feasting for a month, not a football match!

“He wasn’t the only one, either. When the game started, nobody could move. We were so sluggish and we spent the first-half getting absolutely peppered.

“Somehow, we managed to go in 2-0 up at half time. Our keeper was man of the match by an absolute mile. I thought ‘Wow, if we got away with that, this might just be our year’.”

And it was. Ferriby eliminated Ebbsfleet United and Bath City before beating top-flight Wrexham at Wembley in one of the most entertaining finals in Trophy history.