English football’s elite have never felt so far removed from the everymen further down the pyramid, but there remains one bit of common ground: Wembley Stadium, a place that defines seasons and sometimes careers. At non-league finals day, the double header that has become a rich addition (spiritually if not financially) to the English football calendar, Kai Walters of Ascot United and Jamie Cooke of FC Halifax Town were carved on to the list of players who have lived the ultimate childhood daydream by scoring a winning goal at Wembley.
Non-league finals day, which started in 2016, is an opportunity for four teams from outside the English Football League to see how the other half live. It combines the finals of the FA Vase, the knockout trophy for teams in tiers nine and 10 of English men’s football, and the FA Trophy (tiers five to eight). There’s none of the entitlement and ennui you sometimes see when the biggest clubs return to Wembley, and the mood around the stadium is subtly different: eyes are a little wider, smiles a little broader, songs a little lustier.
At the end of a long day, it was the supporters of Halifax who were making all the noise. Their team won the FA Trophy for the second time, beating a gallant but weary Gateshead Town 1-0.
Gateshead, who were without 14 senior players, had a lot of possession but Halifax were a study in defensive excellence. Their goal came just before half-time when Louis Storey, oblivious to the presence of Cooke behind him, played a blind backpass to the goalkeeper James Montgomery. His desperate clearance hit Cooke’s outstretched leg and time stood still before the ball gently rippled the net.
“It’s every kid’s dream to play at this stadium,” Cooke said. “To score the winner and for us to play as well as we have, it means the world to us. We were here in 2016 [when they won the FA Trophy for the first time] and to do the same again – 1-0, clean sheet, never lost at Wembley – is absolutely huge.”
For most of the teams involved, non-league finals day isn’t the highlight of the season; it’s the highlight of the decade, occasionally their entire history. Ascot United have certainly never had a season like 2022-23. They won the Combined Counties League at a canter, collecting 102 points from 38 games, and completed their own version of the double in the first match of the day. Ascot, playing at Wembley for the first time, beat the holders, Newport Pagnell Town, 1-0 in a game of painfully fine margins. It was settled in the 80th minute when the substitute Walters produced a deft near-post header from the outstanding Sean McCormack’s cross.
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“You know what, I’ve been manifesting this for years, dreaming about it,” Walters said. “As soon as Sean had the ball on the right I knew he’d whip it in, because that’s what he does, and luckily I put it in.”
While the Ascot team ran over to get tactile with their supporters at the final whistle, the hugs and high-fives symbolising the connection between players and fans at this level, a tearful Jake Watkinson barely registered his teammates’ attempts to console him. Watkinson, the Newport Pagnell striker, missed the best chance of the game at 0-0, screwing Albie Hall’s cross wide from six yards.
Watkinson scored 26 goals this season but the 27th, the one he didn’t score, will be the one that stays with him. At Wembley, the emotions are always extreme – no matter which part of the football pyramid you come from.
