‘PLAYING BIG GUNS SEEMED TO SUIT US MORE'

THE DAYS WHEN WOKING SCARED TOP-FLIGHT SKY BLUES...

- Steve Tervet

WHAT do you make of Woking?” John Motson’s question was innocent enough as he put it to Gary McAllister that the part-timers from Surrey, having just taken Premiership opposition all the way in their FA Cup third-round replay, were a better side than their GM Vauxhall Conference status suggested.

But the Coventry City captain was terse in reply.

“It suggests some of their players can only turn it on for one game a season,” McAllister said. “I don’t understand that. If these guys really want to work at it, they should be playing at a higher level.”

There was relief in McAllister’s comments, a late own goal having spared the blushes of Gordon Strachan just two months into his first managerial role, but real feeling too.

“To be taken to that extent by a Non-League side was embarrassing for them,” said Woking’s 39-year-old talisman Clive Walker. “They were angry. They’d convinced themselves we were equally as good as them over two games and it worried them.

“I’ve spoken to Gordon Strachan since and he said it was his worst nightmare. They were losing their pride and we knew we’d got to them. The more dirty tricks they tried, the more we thought it was funny.”

Captain Kevan Brown added: “They were shell-shocked. Maybe we put their noses out of joint in the sense that little old Woking had given them so many problems. They didn’t expect us to play the sort of football we did.”

“There was a mini punch-up in the dressing-room,” said Cards boss Geoff Chapple. “It all spilled over and our dressing-room door came caving in.”