The perfect cup tie does not always have the fairytale ending, as Chesterfield found out. They fought back from trailing twice to lead going into injury time only to see Brandon Thomas-Asante head home a leveller.
The equaliser caused euphoria in the away end. It showed what it means to avoid being the victim of an upset. It was a thrilling FA Cup story of a community trust-owned non-league team taking on a club in distress, even if the ending would not be purchased by Disney.
West Brom avoided the humiliation thanks to Thomas-Asante, a forward who almost joined Chesterfield a few years ago, who bookended the game with two well-taken goals to silence the home fans.
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit of a sickener. It’s a bit raw at the moment,” the Chesterfield assistant manager, Danny Webb, said. “If you said before the game you had a game like that for supporters, they would snap your hand off for entertainment value. Disappointing to concede so late, of course. We’ve scored three goals against a Championship team. Everybody can be very proud.”
Chesterfield deserved the victory but West Brom were clinical throughout. The majority of the highest attendance in a decade at the Technique Stadium left disappointed but they witnessed a thriller to mark any round.
Armando Dobra twice scored as he looked to write his own chapter in the club’s FA Cup history – their most famous moments came in their run to the semi-finals in 1997. “It’s a bit of a sickener. If you said before you take it to 90 minutes and they get an equaliser, you probably wouldn’t have believed it,” Webb said.
Many of the 9,819 in the ground were keen to reminisce about the 1997 run but they were jolted inside two minutes when a cross from Karlan Grant on the left was struck with such ferocity by Thomas-Asante on the half-volley that Ross Fitzsimons might not have realised it had passed him until he heard the crunching noise of the netting. Conceding at such a stage can add an extra thrilling chapter to the giantkilling story, or at least that was the hope for the home fans.
The response from the crowd and players was almost immediate. Jamie Grimes was waiting to head back across goal for his centre-back partner, Tyrone Williams, to bundle it over the line in the sixth minute, to test the foundations of the three-quarters of the stadium packed with Spireites, only for Grant to restore the lead soon afterwards.
Playing against a second-tier side enjoying 70% of possession in the opening quarter of the match ensured the Chesterfield energy levels were dropping at the same rate as the sun and temperature.
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But even so there was a leveller from the tireless Dobra. Jeff King crossed straight to the winger to sweep home from inside the area for his fourth of the competition this season. His fifth came five minutes later. Driving through the centre of the pitch, the Albanian slipped the ball through to Joe Quigley, who timed his run to perfection before firing across Button. The goalkeeper palmed the shot straight to Dobra, who whacked the bouncing ball into a top corner to instigate bedlam. The tiredness was gone and the upset was on.
West Brom sent on their first-team regulars to lift the tempo in an attempt to turn things around. When Dobra went down injured with 17 minutes left there was a surge of blue shirts to the touchline in search of sustenance to keep the home side going for the remainder of the match.
The match finished as it started with a well-taken Thomas-Asante goal inside the area for a side who had won eight of their previous nine games to put them in the Championship promotion race.
Webb said: “More than frustrated in the end [to concede], disappointed. A couple of minutes more and we’d have had a pitch invasion [if Chesterfield had won] and all the cameras are in the dressing room but that’s football.” As Webb says, that is football but what a glorious sport it can be, even if it upsets you. At least they will get to do it all again.
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