I'VE HAD BLOODS SWEAT & TEARS!

SEAN NEWTON has been waiting 11 years for a decent FA Cup run – having got caught up in one of the competition’s most bizarre stories.

- MATT BADCOCK

Back in 2008, a fresh-faced Newton was at the centre of Droylsden’s epic cup run that took them to the third round. Well, almost.

The Bloods had to play Chesterfield four times after fog, floodlight failure and replays turned their tie into an on-going saga.

Former England C international Newton scored twice in the second replay against the Spireites but the tale was to take another twist. Newton should have sat the game out through suspension.

“To do that and then wake up the next day – from that high to that low, I probably haven’t experienced anything like that in footie,” Newton, now at York City, tells The NLP. “It’s very rare after a night game to think about it but I went to bed on Cloud Nine and woke up the next day thinking, ‘What’s happening here?’

“We always had Sky Sports on the telly at home. My mum woke me up and said, ‘Sean, you need to get up and see this’. I came down and I was on the yellow bar at the bottom! I phoned the gaffer Dave Pace, also the chairman, and he said it was true but they were going to fight the cause. In the end we got kicked out.”

Having beaten then League Two Darlington in the first round, the Conference North side were on for another scalp as they led 1-0 at Chesterfield before fog descended “from nowhere”.