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Your support makes all the difference.Nothing summed up Scarborough's attitude to their great day better than Mark Hotte. The centre-half had been knocked out cold by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's elbow, his lip was cut and his shins battered. Yes, Hasselbaink had elbowed him, but he had been hit by a Premiership player and that was almost an honour.
"I'm bashed every week so being bashed by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen is a bit different," he smiled. "I was dazed when he hit me but when I got up, I thought, 'You might as well get bashed by people like this'." By way of compensation Hasselbaink had handed him his shirt. "He told me I deserved it."
Hotte was keen to point out that Scarborough were not a bunch of lads pulled from the pub. Most had come with a pedigree of sorts if not a transfer fee. He is 25 and had been signed from Oldham Athletic, who are now paupers compared to Scarborough.
"We had a meeting before the match and talked about our fears. I said, 'How can you fear playing someone who's worth £20m and you're worth nothing? But I don't think I'll be out celebrating. It's really strange, we've lost 1-0 to Chelsea and the lads are gutted. I walked in the dressing-room and everybody's heads were down."
As the Seadogs marched around the McCain Stadium on a lap of honour, the Tannoy was blasting out the Queen anthem "We are the Champions". It is always played on occasions such as these and usually when championships have not been won. Its inappropriateness was summed up by the line "no time for losers" belted out just when the whole of Scarborough and beyond was making time for men who had lost as well as it is ever possible to lose.
They did not, as Yeovil had in an earlier round, claim they had been cheated. Their chairman, Malcolm Reynolds, will not, as his counterpart at Farnborough did after their day with Arsenal, clear off to another club taking more than half the team and substantial assets with him. They were not humiliated.
Clint Marcelle knows what it is like to be humiliated in front of your own supporters by Chelsea. In August 1997, he had been part of a Barnsley side thrashed 6-0 in a game televised live because, then as now, the cameras could contrast Yorkshire drabness with the glamour of the visitors.
"It wasn't the same thing at all as playing Chelsea with Barnsley," said Marcelle, his son, also called Clint, by his side. "There were young players here for a start and they were up for it because they realised they may never have this again. We wanted to enjoy it. In the first few seconds Frank Lampard had a shot which ricocheted off the post and we just looked at each other and smiled."
It says something that so many Scarborough players were disappointed to have lost. In another world, one scripted by television or serialised in comics, Colin Cryan's header would have beaten Carlo Cudicini and William Gallas's handball would have resulted in a penalty that Mark Quayle would have thumped home in front of the Seamer Road End. They would then have drawn Manchester United in the next round and gone down to a plucky defeat at Old Trafford. Not even a Boys' Own comic would have had Scarborough actually winning the FA Cup.
As his children hovered around the chocolate cake in the sponsors' lounge, Russell Slade prepared for a last interview. "We would have expected most referees to have given the penalty," the Scarborough manager said. "But then we would have had to score from it and we're not crying about it. There was a carnival here today. Scarborough in winter is usually deserted but we woke the town up in the middle of January and that is fantastic."
Outside, the Roman Abramovich lookalike, now without the willowy models with which The Sun had furnished him, was looking faintly embarrassed, not quite knowing where to go. The newspaper's battle bus was trundling back down the A64 and, by the main stand, Reynolds was looking forward to obscurity and something else he had not enjoyed in 10 days. Deep sleep.
Goal: Terry (10) 0-1.
Scarborough: (4-4-2) Walker; Lyth, Cryan, Hotte, Baker (Capper, 14); Marcelle, Kelly, Kerr, Sestanovic; Whitman (Senior, 72), Quayle. Substitutes not used: Sollitt (gk), Williams, Downey.
Chelsea: (4-4-2) Cudicini; Melchiot, Gallas, Terry, Bridge; Cole, Nicolas (Oliveira, 66), Lampard, Gronkjaer (Petit, h-t); Gudjohnsen, Hasselbaink. Substitutes not used: Sullivan (gk), Johnson, Huth.
Referee: B Knight (Kent).
Bookings: Scarborough: Hotte. Chelsea: Melchiot, Terry.
Man of the match: Terry.
Attendance: 5,379.
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